A New Beginning
by Ryo19
Summary: Everything ends once you die, right? Wrong, and Duo's about to find out just how wrong. 5x2, 1xR Yaoi


A New Beginning.  
By Ryo.  
  
Disclaimer: No matter how much I delude myself, I don't own Gundam  
Wing. Damn!  
  
A slim, pale form lay suspended in a colourless but buoyant  
solution. It was motionless as it stared through the glass of the  
artificial womb that contained it, up at the featureless ceiling  
above. It understood little of the world outside of it's chamber,  
though it mutely watched figures moving from one place to another,  
staring at strangle objects that flashed with symbols before moving  
on. Occasionally the forms beyond the glass made sounds that the  
liquid carried to its sensative ears. It felt nothing toward these  
figures, nor the sound that they made.  
  
They were from a different world, outside of its own. Besides, it  
understood none of the occurrences. Its mind was untainted,  
unblemished by human thoughts of regret and hope.  
  
It existed. Its instincts called for things that would maintain  
its existence. But these things had been provided, it's instincts  
were sated and the driving forces that had ensured the survival of  
all life since the beginning of time were quiet. The primordial  
aspects of his mind slipped back in to the darkness, relaxing to  
let the void take over again until a time at which its needs were  
not met.  
  
But for now it was safe and warm, that's all that mattered. The  
forms eyes closed peacefully and it surrendered easily back in to  
the dreamless state that it existed in. Time meant nothing to it  
after all, because it had neither memory of the past nor thoughts  
of the future. It lived for the moment, as its long dead ancestors  
had once done.  
  
It remained in its dark world of thoughtless satisfaction,  
undisturbed as the liquid that cradled it was drained away, leaving  
unmarred skin at the mercy of the environment for the first time  
since its existence had begun. It lay undisturbed as the chamber  
that had protected its frail and unused form was cracked open and  
careful, gloved hands drew its body free from its long term prison.  
  
It noticed nothing as it was placed on the padded surface of a  
hospital bed and was wiped down and dried. Eyes stared at its  
figure; hands touched it in wonder, running over long strands of  
chestnut hair, touching skin that had never been caressed by  
natural light. Through everything the darkness remained and the  
untainted mind remained in its dreamless and thoughtless state.  
  
Gloved hands suddenly clawed at its surface, causing something that  
was unpleasant, something that its instincts demanded was to be  
avoided. The blackness disappeared as the threatening figured drew  
its eyelids open, revealing blank eyes that stared up at the faces  
but that comprehended nothing.  
  
Instincts screamed at the forefront of its mind, ordering that the  
sensation being experienced be stopped in order for existence to  
continue but the being knew nothing of how to counter the cause of  
the sensation, as it knew nothing of movement.  
  
Something cold was pressed again its face, replacing the view of  
faces with colourless disks. Sounds echoed around it, clearer  
without the liquid to interfere but the words remained meaning  
less. Language meant nothing to one hearing for the first time.  
One sound, loud and gruff broke above the rest and the object was  
stilled before its eyes. A low hum ran across its chest and the  
disks flashed.  
Thought poured into the void.  
  
Flash  
Screaming. Heat. Light. FEAR!  
Something flickering before him, around him.  
Too much heat.  
Pain.  
No air. Yells mixing with the screams.  
Hands lifting him.  
Clean air. Coolness. Safety in large arms.  
Noise...sirens.  
The scent of burnt flesh.  
Sadness.  
Flash  
Hunger. Cold. Opportunity.  
A weakness spotted and exploited.  
The weight of a full wallet in his grubby fist.  
A weight that promised a brief respite from the nagging hunger.  
Red brick walls flashing past as he ran.  
Cheers from figures he knew to be his friends.  
The warm safety of the lap of his saviour.  
Flash  
Blood staining small hands, trickling from a flashing silver blade.  
A thud as a large figure hit the ground, emitting a short pain  
filled gasp before growing still.  
The feel of a large hand pulling him away, dragging him in to a  
run.  
A rule older than he ordering his feet to move even as his mind  
collapsed.  
Run...Run and hide...LIVE.  
Flash  
A last rattling breath escaping tortured lungs.  
A familiar body, once strong, going limp as it surrendered to a  
force greater than itself.  
The thick clawing stench of disease, blood and rotting flesh.  
Ground scattered by still friends that had succumbed and abandoned  
him.  
Survival, a name and memories to hold on to, to make certain they  
would be remembered.  
Flash  
Safety in the arms of a young woman who could never be yet was a  
mother.  
The feeling of starchy clothes and a tight pressure upon his  
throat.  
Laughter shared and sadness as he was slowly abandoned by those he  
had saved.  
Parents denied but a new family found.  
Demands. Guns. Yelling.  
Darting across hard concrete. Fear and pride.  
Screams. Heat. Fire.  
The sound of bullets tearing at innocent flesh.  
Another name. Another family lost.  
Flash  
Screams and pleasure.  
Bloody revenge reeked upon the deserving.  
Pain for pain. Death for death.  
The creation of a new being within another.  
The birth of something greater than the original. Built from  
stagnation and hate.  
Men in white coats dying in their labs, contaminated.  
Dying from the very plague they caused.  
Men in combat fatigues entombed in a building, screaming.  
The scent of burning flesh and gun fire.  
Escape and an offer.  
A chance to bring about an end.  
Flash  
A new family. New friends.  
Schools, safe houses, camp outs and cruises.  
Explosions, killing, wounds.  
Pain balanced out by companionship.  
Blood staining skin, never to be washed away.  
The thrill of battle.  
The thrum of his suits core and weapons.  
Victory.  
Flash  
Heat.  
A problem with his buddy.  
The core overheating.  
A rough re-entry from the sanctuary of MO3.  
A hard landing in salt water, the rocking of waves against pitted  
armour.  
The hiss of superheated Gundamium cooling at the oceans touch.  
A feed from Sandrock's sensors so he could witness the  
celebrations.  
Soldiers wearing the white uniform of the Sank kingdom advancing in  
welcome.  
Weapons drawn. Bullets fired.  
Crimson life staining the grey concrete.  
The shrill laugh of a once queen hungry for power.  
The calm smile of the saviour of the world.  
BETRAYAL.  
HATE.  
The scream of battered joints complaining under strain.  
Inexperienced pilots manning newly surrendered Oz suits falling at  
the touch of his Scythe.  
Master alarms warning of the inevitable. Heat building below him.  
The sight of a white winged Judas rising before him, within reach.  
A reading reaching critical. A lunge, the clang of armour on  
armour.  
Laughter. An exchange of words. Two massive machines struggling  
for supremacy.  
A red button depressed.  
The world exploding in a burst of light.  
A shard of metal invading the safety of his reinforced cockpit.  
A force smashing him back, pinning him in his seat.  
Burning pain and blood staining his vacuum suit.  
An end.  
Flash  
  
The form gasped and jerked upward in an uncontrolled spasm, eyes so  
wide they seemed inhuman, violet iris' glowing in the darkened  
room. The blank face twisted in unrelenting agony as muscles  
contracted and delicate fingers clawed at the perfect skin above  
his heart, searching.  
  
Dimly, the overburdened mind registered that no shard of gundamium  
had pierced his breast nor no scar marked its passage. Hands  
snatched his own and pinned them gently to the smooth mattress he  
rested upon as something sharp slipped in to his skin, filling him  
with an unknown liquid.  
  
Darkness began to close in around him, stealing away his sight  
before he had a chance to take in the beaming faces of those  
surrounding him. Distantly he recognised a voice issuing orders  
before he fell in to the depths of his now over flowing mind,  
surrendering to the dreams that plagued his crowded unconscious.  
  
"Welcome back Duo." Was the last thing that reached his thoughts  
before everything around him disappeared and he was returned to his  
own inner world.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Violet eyes flickered slowly open in the darkened room and scanned  
the surroundings. The teen's body remaining motionless throughout  
the quick check, breathing and heart rate carefully controlled to  
maintain the impression of sleep to any that monitored him.  
  
The room was a deep blue rather than the sterile white of a  
hospital ward or the dull grey of a prison cell. It was on the  
small size with the bed and a small desk taking up most of the  
space.  
A dim night light glowed in the corner of the room and Duo found  
himself frowning at the sight of it. It suggested that someone  
nearby knew of his dislike of dark enclosed spaces. A dark green  
and scratchy blanket had been draped lightly over his form and his  
clothes were surprisingly absent.  
  
No one was in the room, and though the light was barely sufficient,  
he detected no sign of any observation equipment. Two doors lead  
off of the small room, both of which were not quite closed,  
allowing strips of harsh white light in.  
  
Carefully he pushed away the covering and stood, weary for any  
sudden outside response to his movement, but when no soldiers or  
doctors for that matter came running he forced himself to relax.  
His eyes dashed around the room, this time searching for potential  
weapons or clothing, but like the scan for threats, he again found  
nothing.  
  
The only loose object in the room seemed to be the thin military  
issue blanket. Not that it mattered much. He was a Gundam pilot  
after all; his entire body was a weapon. He turned from the  
sparsely furnished room and stealthily opened the nearest door,  
bracing himself to respond to whoever might be lurking on the other  
side.  
  
Instead he revealed a small, private bathroom, containing a sink,  
toilet and narrow shower cubical all tiled in a sandy yellow  
colour. It was clean and functional, although a bit cramped.  
  
Quatre would no doubt have given it a 'look' and suffered through  
it, but Duo remembered when the idea of bathing at all was an  
unrecognisable dream. This was paradise next to some of the things  
he had survived over the years.  
  
His head was beginning to ache, as though his mind was attempting  
to tell him something that his subconscious didn't want to know  
about. He mentally diverted the pain to one side, as G had once  
taught him and stepped on to the cold tiled floor, striding to the  
sink. Filling the basin with luke warm water, he washed his face  
quickly, fingers brushing his fringe. He froze however as he  
caught sight of his own face and frowned before leaning forward to  
examine the pale skin there more closely.  
  
His tan was gone. Surely he had not been asleep or unconscious  
long enough to lose that. Or maybe he had. Maybe he had been in a  
coma, as Heero had been briefly, after his self destruction. But  
why?  
  
He reached into his memory, trying to remember the last thing he  
had done, trying to place what mission he might have been injured  
in, but his memories seemed jumbled...like they lacked a time order  
in his mind. His frown darkened and he scanned his face again.  
Something was missing. Something that should have been there...  
  
The scar that had marred his check for nearly eight years was gone.  
The line that a ring had cut in his flesh when a potential raper  
had back handed him, a few seconds before Solo's knife had gouged a  
hole straight through the bastards kidneys. The memory was so  
clear and yet there was no mark.  
  
Blinking in confusion, the violet eyes trailed lower, scanning the  
chest of his reflection. His thin fingers of his right hand rose  
and traced over his bicep. A thick scar from a flesh wound was  
missing. The fingers trailed from his left upper arm down to his  
stomach. The solid silver mark of a narrowly missed attempt by an  
Oz soldier to gut him was missing too. The skin was perfect,  
untainted.  
  
He looked lowed, toward his own body as the mirror was only upper  
torso height and studied the rest of his body. His right knee no  
longer ached from a bad fall from a third story window that had  
dislocated it. His right elbow lacked the unnatural bump caused by  
a poor setting of a break while he was at Maxwell church. His  
thigh was missing the round perforation mark where a bullet had  
entered and shattered his femur. The soles of his feet were soft  
and un-calloused from over six year of not owning shoes. Every  
blemish, even the mottled brown of a birth mark that had once  
stained the back of his left calf, were missing. His skin, his  
body was perfect...like it was brand new.  
  
"What the hell?" He whispered, glancing up at the mirror again,  
meeting his own eyes. There was something that he was missing,  
something that would explain all of this. There had to be a  
simple, logical reason, that's what Wufei had always said.  
  
There had to be a more logical explanation than he being  
mysteriously granted a new top of the line body that seemed exactly  
the same right down to the braid but was lacking all of the  
imperfections of his last one. Maybe he'd been in a coma so long  
that they'd invented a way to remove such blemishes without causing  
damage to the skin. But then why had he not aged?  
  
He head was pounding now and he leaned forward, unashamed of his  
nakedness, resting his forehead against the cold metal of the  
mirror. All the marks that had made him who he was, that spoke as  
a reminder of his past were gone and he had no idea as to why. How  
long had he slept?! Was the war even over yet?!  
  
His delicate fingers that had never been burned by solder,  
blistered by tools or scrapped in climbing, traced up from his  
thigh, over his muscled stomach to rest over his heart, allowing  
the reassuring feel of the sedate pumping to calm him.  
  
His brow twisted against the mirrors smooth finish. Something was  
missing...something very important...something...  
  
He jerked away from the mirror and stared in mute shock, down in  
the direction of his waist. He stared for a solid minute before  
closing his eyes, taking a deep breath and looking again.  
  
It wasn't there.  
  
He rubbed his eyes this time, even going so far as to splash water  
over his face before looking again.  
  
It still wasn't there.  
  
He ran his fingers over the smooth skin, his finger tips ghosting  
over lean, tempered muscle but feeling nothing else.  
  
It defiantly wasn't there.  
  
Some complete and utter bastard had nicked his belly button. It  
wasn't there. At all.  
  
He took another deep breath, running mentally through one of the  
simplistic calming exercises that both Wufei and Quatre had  
pressured him in to learning, swallowing down the sudden bolt of  
panic that was stirring in his gut. He silently counted to ten,  
letting his heart beat steady before opening his eyes yet again.  
  
The something that was tugging at his mind was growing stronger but  
Duo refused to surrender to it and instead, with great force of  
will focused his mind. The simplest and most logical explanation  
was most often the correct one, that's what Wufei believe,  
especially after he had claimed that a chocolate eating monster had  
stolen all of the pancake syrup in an attempt to shift the blame  
and to escape the clutches of an angry blond.  
  
So what was simpler? One; that an anti blemish machine had been  
invented and that the latest fashion was running towards no tans or  
belly buttons or two; that this wasn't his body at all, at least no  
his original and that he had been instead gifted with a new one.  
  
He shuddered and glanced around, wondering mildly why no one had  
come to check on him yet. He was short of expecting one of the  
others to come marching in and tell him to get his disobedient butt  
back in to bed.  
  
Maybe that was a good idea. Maybe this was all some stupid bad  
dream and if he returned to bed he would wake up in the real world,  
probably as a result of Heero upending a glass of water over him in  
an effort to wake him for a class at what ever new cover school  
they were in. After all, he was quite prone to having freaky  
dreams, something Howard and the Sweepers found amusing whenever he  
regaled them with his latest one.  
  
Yeah, that was it. Just some stupid dream which Sally would no  
doubt psycho-analysis to death at their next mental health check.  
He smirked at himself in the mirror, again letting his fingers  
trail up to rest over his heart, his eyes closed in quiet  
contemplation, struggling to ignore the tugging of an insistent  
memory.  
  
He was missing something still. Something ever so important.  
He sighed. He had probably forgotten to do his homework or  
something silly like that. No doubt Cat would let him copy from...  
  
A scene flashed in his minds eye. Quatre smiling casually at him  
in reassurance even though his pale blue eyes failed to hide sudden  
worry. He heard his own voice, sounding detached, as he informed  
Quatre of the problem.  
  
A laser strike in the last few minutes of the battle with the final  
group of Oz soldiers that had refused Une's order to surrender had  
caught Deathscythe on an already damaged section of his chest  
armour. It had cut through the damage from four days of solid  
combat and disabled three of his seven heat sinks.  
  
His core was over heating badly and coolant was leaking like blood  
from the massive Gundam's heart. It was growing hot in the cockpit  
and Duo had to make his drop into atmosphere right away or he would  
be forced to abandon his Gundam completely.  
  
Duo staggered, his knees giving way as the imagined heat rolled  
over him.  
  
The re-entry had been hurried and more than a little rough on his  
already tired, aching body. Yet he had made it, bringing  
Deathscythe down on the remains of its jump jets in the bay of the  
Sank kingdom, as close to the newly set up base there, that was  
accepting the surrendered weapons for destruction, as possible.  
  
The salt water had hissed, sending torrents of steam in to the air  
as the battle weary Gundam lowered its glowing armour in to the icy  
ocean. He had watched relieved at the sensors that had been edging  
towards critical dropped down to more normal temperatures. No  
doubt in a matter of hours Howard would have a boat here to collect  
his precious suit and spares waiting with which to fix it.  
  
He watched his display screens with a jealous envy as Sandrock,  
Heavyarms and Nataku set down on the smooth runway of Sank base and  
strolled as casually as possible with their damage in to the  
waiting hanger to attend the celebrations that would be awaiting  
them.  
  
His screens flickered and a view of the inside of a hanger bay  
replaced the sandy bay he had been gazing at. Quatre was sharing  
Sandrock's sensors with Deathscythe's mainframe so that he could  
watch their glorious welcome even though he could not attend  
himself. The blond had no doubt sensed that he was feeling left  
out.  
  
The view shifted slightly as Sandrock came to a halt and shut down  
its weapons systems. Within pick up range, Nataku had down the  
same and its hatch hissed open to reveal a weary Chinese teen that  
despite his exhaustion was grinning widely. He slid down his exit  
wire and dropped on to the pale concrete floor, striding over to  
where Howard was supporting a still recovering Hilde, both of whom  
seemed eager to see him.  
  
They exchanged greetings and a restrained hugs respectively before  
turning to the two other pilots. Trowa was aiding the unsteady  
blond as the two moved in to pickup range, both talking softly.  
Neither noticed the sound of pounding boots as a company of  
soldiers marched into the hanger.  
  
Duo frown at the screen, wondering why Relena, a pacifist would  
want an armed escort, especially when confronting her friends but  
he dismissed it as a publicity thing, no doubt to make the entire  
issue seem stylish. Duo relaxed back in his cockpit, waiting for  
Heero and his 'girlfriends' appearance, quickly removing his  
helmet, glad to be rid the stinking thing after days of wearing it.  
  
The sound of firing bolts clicking into ready positions made him  
freeze half way through storing it and he turned back towards the  
screen in time to see the bullets from guns out of the range of  
Sandrock's sensors slam in to the bodies of his friends.  
  
Crimson splattered the ground as armour piercing rounds torn  
through unprotected flesh and rang off of the gundamium armour of  
Sandrock's foot. Howard collapsed backward, taking Hilde down with  
him, his sunglasses skidding across the hard floor. Wufei was  
slammed from his feet and rolled as he landed, lying still face  
down in a pool of his own blood.  
  
Trowa, sensing the attack seconds before it occurred, knocked  
Quatre sideways, attempting to save them both, even as he pulled  
out a hand gun. The weapon had not cleared it holster before he  
and the smaller, already injured blond were raked over by the  
machine gun fire. They, too joined their fellows on the hanger  
floor, killed in cold blood as their suits stood as silent  
witnesses to the betrayal.  
  
The gun fire quieted, leaving only echoes that quickly died away  
only to be replaced with a far more disgusting sound.  
  
"Three down, one more to go. I trust you can handle the street  
rat, my perfect soldier?"  
  
"Mission accepted."  
  
Both the Duo of the past and the one collapsed on the cold tiles  
shuddered at the sound of the voices, at the feelings that exploded  
behind eyes flooded with tears.  
  
They would pay.  
  
They would all pay for this betray. Just like every other that had  
ever crossed Shinigami had been made to pay.  
  
Practiced fingers cut the feed from Sandrock's computer and re-  
powered up the hulking form of Deathscythe, sparing a second to  
wipe his wet eyes on the sleeve of his vacuum suit before spurring  
his Gundam in to motion.  
  
The massive form of the reaper rose like a monster from the oceans  
waves and charged forward, toward the base where newly surrendered  
Taurus' were emerging from hangers and heading in his direction,  
lead by the white figure of Wing Zero.  
  
Duo growled and increased his speed, ignoring the groans of  
complaint from damaged joints and servos, protesting under the  
strain of gravity and recent ill use. Master alarms began to sound  
again in the confined space as the temperature of the power core,  
without the cooling affect of submersion, began once more over  
heat.  
  
In any other situation he might have urged Deathscythe's systems  
on, begging his 'buddy' to keep it up with the promise of a repair  
and a new paint job. But he had no humour left. A mask had  
slammed down over his normally expressive face and the inner light  
of his violet eyes had been smothered.  
  
Now all that remained was a hatred that burned with a fury that few  
humans could have withstood. Hatred built from the loss of too  
many friends, too many loved ones. The only expression on his face  
was one of need, of thirst, for the blood of those that had dared  
to betray.  
  
At the last possible second he activated his scythe, noting  
absently that only one blade glowed in to existence before he  
slammed himself in to the row of advancing suits. Their laser  
rifles rendered useless by the close range, the inexperienced and  
newly recruited pilots of Sank reacted slowly to switching to their  
secondary weapons in the form of beam sabres.  
  
Duo didn't waste the opportunity and slashed out, lunging along the  
row as quickly as his damaged servos would allow. His scythe  
arched out again and again, thermal blade cutting through the weak  
titanium as though it wasn't there. The close conditions between  
the rows doubled the effect of his attack as with every suit that  
exploded, the two behind were sent crashing to the ground, their  
pilots failing to balance the massive suits against the sudden  
forces.  
  
Within moments half of the nearest attacking company of thirty  
suits lead by Wing Zero were nothing more than smouldering metal  
while the rest were struggling to regain their feet. Duo ignored  
them though, and ignored the further two companies approaching  
quickly. They meant little to him. He had eyes only for the white  
winged Judas that stood before him, its beam sabre at the ready.  
  
"Don't delude yourself Maxwell. You don't have what it takes to  
beat me." Heero's voice echoed over the Gundam's private comm, a  
smirk in his voice even as Duo charged, raking his scythe forward  
only to have it deflected casually.  
  
Wing Zero had been quickly repaired after its atmosphere dive, its  
armour no longer bore battle stains nor was it straining to  
function despite massive system wide damage. Deathscythe was out  
matched.  
  
Duo swung again, his face devoid of emotion as he watched the  
second deflection with disinterest. As soon as both weapons were  
out of the way he burnt the very last of his jump fuel and managed  
a flying tackle, using Deathscythe's superior bulk to slam his  
opponent to the ground.  
  
Metal clanged loudly together, the weapons discarded at the two  
giant suits wrestled and tore at each other, Heero all the while  
growling insults in Japanese.  
  
"Baka. Is this your best attempt?!"  
  
Duo switched on his video feed and stared into his former friend's  
eyes, his face carefully blank. He raised a hand containing the  
self detonation control for Deathscythe and flicked up the safety  
even as his power core readings slipped in to critical. Both  
explosions would create a blast ten times that produced by the  
detonation of Wing One all those months ago.  
  
"Burn in hell, traitor." Duo snarled, slamming his thumb down on  
the red button, his violet eyes closed tight.  
  
The explosion sent him slamming forward in his harness, the force  
of the blast sending Deathscythe's heavily armoured cockpit  
spinning even as the light enveloped and destroyed all of the  
surrounding suits and half of the newly built Sank base. Amongst  
the chaos, Duo dimly noted that with the extra shielding Howard had  
insisting upon adding to the suits cockpit to protect his 'kid',  
there was a chance that he might even survive.  
  
He remembered considering the idea for all of two seconds before a  
shard of gundamium blasted through the weld between two armour  
sheets and had smashed straight through his chest... straight through  
his heart. After that there was no more thought. Only pain  
growing distant and the rising void.  
  
In his private pale yellow bathroom, Duo slowly came back to  
himself, lying naked against the cold tiles. His delicate hands  
lifted to his pale chest, stroking along an invisible mark slightly  
to the left of his chest bone. He let them drop back to the floor;  
his eyes squeezed shut as the pain washed through him.  
  
He was dead.  
  
His friends were dead.  
  
His new family, Howard and Hilde were dead.  
  
His...his lover was dead.  
  
Yet somehow he was alive again. Alive and yet dead.  
  
A clone.  
  
A mere shadow, a living lie.  
  
He shuddered deeply again and stood from the floor, his fingers  
tightening into fists as he turned to the mirror, turned to stare  
into eyes that Solo's had never met, at a face that Sister Helen  
had never caressed, that his lover had never kissed.  
  
Rage filled him. At Relena, at Heero and at the people that had  
done this, that had created him, destined to be no more than a copy  
of another.  
  
Snarling wordlessly he slammed his left fist straight in to the  
mirror, a slight twist of his lips all that he would permit to show  
of his satisfaction as it shattered, pieces dropping in to the  
sink. He selected the largest piece, holding it carefully in his  
palm as an improvised weapon before striding into the bedroom and  
though the other door, out in to a metallic corridor painted in a  
military grey.  
  
He relaxed the control over his mind and allowed his instincts to  
take control and guide his feet, pushing away thoughts of his  
cloning far to the back of his mind for contemplation later. For  
now he had far more important things to discover. Like why someone  
had gone to the trouble of bringing him back to life.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
In some strange and disturbing way, the sight before him was almost  
beautiful. As though he had stepped into some twisted fairy story,  
the likes of which Sister Helen had once regaled her charges with.  
  
As countless Princesses had, once upon a time, this form too lay  
still, trapped...but not within an enchanted sleep. No. This form  
lay motionless under the spell of Death its self. No kiss, no  
matter how sweet or innocent would ever reawaken this figure from  
its timeless oblivion. And Duo could not help but feel a tad  
jealous as he stared through the thick glass of the stasis chamber.  
  
He had followed his feet, years of wandering the streets having  
long ago taught him that one should have faith in ones own sense of  
direction, to lead you to where you were needed, even if you had no  
conscious knowledge of the destination. His feet had guided him  
along corridors that seemed never to end, past identical doorways  
to this one room.  
  
To find this.  
  
Fighting his denial, he looked down and studied the form that lay  
frozen, dead and yet unable to rest.  
  
Mercifully a medic had at some point closed its eyes, a fact that  
made Duo glad for he doubted that he would have been able to  
maintain his slipping grip on sanity if he had been forced to stare  
in to his own lifeless eyes. But aside from that that body had not  
been altered.  
  
A shard of gundamium, jutted from the forms chest and crystallized  
blood had congealed around the mortal wound, staining the ragged  
vacuum suit. The thick rope of chestnut hair lay draped on the  
pillow beside its head, knotted and frizzy from the extreme heat of  
the cockpit.  
  
Save for those two small aspects the body was unmarred, undamaged  
by the explosion that had decimated everything within its blast  
radius.  
  
He was staring down at his own corpse.  
  
He shuddered again, almost convulsively this time and let his knees  
collapse under him until he was kneeling beside the glass coffin  
that contained everything that he was and in a single second had  
called his very existence into question.  
  
He was nothing. A replica, a reflection and more importantly, he  
was a...a...  
  
"Duo? You alright?"  
  
He was an abomination.  
  
He did not look up at the sound of the voice and instead sat on his  
knees, staring down at his hands, at hands that both belonged to  
him and did not. He was not Duo Maxwell, and yet in some  
disgusting and unnatural way he was, because the taint of  
scientific endeavour had touched him.  
  
"Duo is dead. Of course he's not alright." He answered in a  
hollow voice, no longer caring if the base that held him contained  
allies or enemies. He had gone beyond such petty concerns. Such  
things became meaningless when existence itself was called in to  
question.  
  
"You look fine to me."  
  
"Fine? I'm a fucking clone! I am some unholy spawn of  
scientists who have yet again attempted to play God. I am nothing  
but an after image. I am not even human anymore." Duo snarled,  
squeezing his hand down on the shard of polished metal serving as  
an improvised weapon, watching as blood tarnished its surface  
before hurling it in the direction of the speaker.  
  
The shard clattered against another object in the room, missing the  
concerned watcher by a good foot.  
  
"Hush Duo. Wasn't Quatre born in a way that mankind once  
referred to as 'playing God'? Would you refer to him as something  
that was inhuman and unholy?"  
  
Duo scowled and stood suddenly from the ground, his lean muscles  
standing out taunt with his anger as he turned to face the adult  
that was interrupting his contemplation and self loathing.  
  
"Who the hell do you...?!" He snapped, his breath cutting out mid-  
sentence as his hard gaze danced over the face presented to him,  
his mouth dropping open slightly as he recognised the features  
despite the dim light. "Trowa...Trowa is that really you?"  
  
The man that stood before him was at least six foot two and well  
built, his muscled form clothed in faded combat fatigues that had  
seen better days. He wore neither rank nor a patch to link him to  
any particular faction and instead wore a simple strip of red  
material around his left upper arm.  
  
His light brown hair was longer, shaggier and uncared for, his  
fringe no longer obscuring one eye from sight. His chin was  
textured with stubble and his tanned checks marred with faint  
scarring.  
  
"It's me Duo."  
  
"But...but your old."  
  
"Twenty five is hardly old, you know." Trowa smiled warmly and  
stepped forward, pulling the shocked and far smaller teen in to the  
comfort of his arms.  
  
Duo was too stunned to resist and instead allowed himself to relax  
in the familiar yet different warmth, pressing his ear to the man's  
chest to reassure himself that one of his lost family was really  
still alive.  
  
"It has been so long." Trowa whispered, crouching slightly so that  
he could rest his head atop the chestnut mass of hair.  
Suddenly Duo pulled back, stepping away from the boy turned man  
that he had been so sure he had seen die.  
  
"How? Why did you...?"  
  
"Hush." Trowa murmured again, reaching out to pull the teen to him  
once again, guiding them both down in to a sitting position on the  
floor, side by side, his arm loosely encircling Duo's slim  
shoulders in an effort to maintain the much needed physical contact  
amongst the sudden uncertainty. "I'll explain..."  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Trowa had heard the heavy footfalls of boots ringing on the hard  
ground. He had seen the white clad figures march into the hanger,  
apparently escorting Relena and Heero to greet them and he felt  
weary.  
  
He had learnt throughout his life that the presence of soldiers was  
never a good thing, even under the guise of an alley. It was why  
he was ready for action when the shots rang out, why he had  
attempted to knock his best friend to the ground where they might  
find relative safety, but the attempt failed.  
  
He had woken a short time later, roused by the Earth bucking  
beneath his feet and the thunder of an explosion deafening him.  
  
But despite these distractions he did not move. A rough lifetime  
spent surviving amongst soldiers had drilled into him that  
recognisance was seldom wasted, so he lay still, controlling his  
breathing and silently thanked the greater powers that the  
stiffness of his vacuum suit masked the rise and fall of his chest.  
  
The movement of breathing was agony though, what with three cracked  
ribs, one broken, serious abdominal injuries and possible internal  
bleeding. Not to mention bullet wounds in his upper thigh and left  
bicep, neither of which were life threatening.  
  
The thunder died away, leaving a mild ringing in his ears and  
people close by began to yell orders amidst the sudden chaos.  
Boots approached, slowing as they got close and their tone changed  
as the soldiers weight fell on some form of liquid.  
  
Strange hands grabbed him, hauling his forcibly limp body in to the  
air and shoving him roughly in to something. A zip was tugged  
closed and he was hoisted again, his weight being supported only at  
his head and feet.  
  
He swung slightly in the grip of his carriers as he was hastily  
removed from the hanger, sunlight making its way through the teeth  
of the zip, and was unceremoniously dumped onto a hard surface. He  
forced himself to bite back a scream as his ribs resettled while  
two other thuds sounded to either side of him.  
  
Other bodies...the bodies of his friends.  
  
A hand slapped twice against metal nearby and the surface under him  
rumbled to life and began to move. He was in a  
truck.  
  
He was alive in a truck, with the bodies of his two near brothers  
beside him and he had a feeling in his gut that neither of them had  
chosen to wear their blast armour under their vacuum suits.  
  
His friends were dead.  
  
And Heero was responsible.  
  
His fists clenched but he forced himself to relax. He had to wait,  
to be still and silent until an opportunity presented itself, until  
someone made a mistake that would grant him his freedom.  
  
He could do nothing yet. He focused his mind, tucking his emotions  
away deep in his unconscious and lay back to listen to the truck  
drivers.  
  
The subject was the recent explosion; the two men exchanging  
shocked whispers about the chaos reeked by the Gundam that was  
supposed to have been weakened. How that 'weakened' suit had  
annihilated an entire company of Taurus's before tackling their  
Queen's perfect soldier and self detonating.  
  
The story was stretched quickly out of real proportions as it was  
discussed over the comm with other drivers doing different duties.  
Reports came in over the three hour drive of Heero Yuy's body being  
recovered and removed from the remains of Wing Zero, of a sudden  
attack from the remnants of the Gundam's allies who had holed up on  
MO-3, driving the Sank army back long enough to retrieve something  
from the crater left by the blast.  
  
Through it all he listened, emotionless, scanning the conversation  
for details that he might later exploit, all the while remaining as  
motionless as the bodies resting at his sides.  
  
Night had fallen when the truck drew to a halt and his black body  
bag was removed from the back of the truck. The soldiers carrying  
him marched haphazardly through corridors lit by unforgiving  
overheads before he was once again set down, this time off of the  
ground on a cold sheet of metal.  
  
The zip was pulled open, his body revealed and a sharp object was  
stabbed in to his arm. He fought to hide a wince and failed but  
the medic working over him failed to notice. Cruel fingers pulled  
his eyes open and colourless disks where placed level with his  
pupils. Light flash, accompanied by a near immediate migraine  
before the zip was refastened and he was left alone.  
  
In a matter of minutes the medics had completed their work with the  
bodies of his friends and had marched from the room, leaving Trowa  
alive and alone in a dark morgue.  
  
He waited five minutes before carefully freeing himself and  
dropping on to the concrete floor, wincing as the impact shifted  
his damaged ribs and reopened the gapping wound through his thigh.  
He was beginning to feel slightly light headed from the blood loss  
but he ignored it and instead limped towards the doors, leaving the  
forms of his fellow pilots behind.  
  
He knew they would understand. He had to survive so that their  
allies; Sally, Rashid and the others, would have at least one  
Gundam pilot to aid them.  
  
It took him less than a minute to find a lonely soldier, kill him  
and slip in to the white Sank uniform, taking an extra minute to  
first bind his wounds with the remains of his under suit.  
  
Without consideration he kept his blast armour on, not willing yet  
to surrender its protection. In little over ten minutes he had  
walked from the base, slipped in to the front seat of a jeep and  
had driven away. He's destination was one of the Manguanacs  
headquarters hidden beneath the dunes in the desert, one that's  
location had never been shared with either Heero or Relena.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
"So, you met the others there?" Duo asked softly.  
  
"I contacted them from there. Our remaining allies had been  
scattered across the globe or were trapped in space, unable to  
reach us. It took over a year for us to reunite and that was  
thanks to Zechs. By the time we were ready to attack again Relena  
already had the world in a strangle hold." Trowa sighed, his  
feature suddenly growing darker, stress lines aging his face. "She  
cut off all transport on or off Earth and blamed outer space for  
the evils of the war. The people believed her. The colonies  
wanted separation, she gave them separation." Duo raised an  
eyebrow, shifting from Trowa's embrace and standing up.  
  
"And the catch?"  
  
"She took the resource satellites. The colonies are slowly but  
surely running out of water, air, you name it. The remaining  
Sweepers are doing what they can but recent changes have made it  
impossible for us to communicate anymore. We're beginning to  
lose."  
  
"Why? If five Gundam pilots could conquer the earth sphere and  
trash two armies then surely two can smash Bitch Queen from power."  
  
Trowa winced and looked away angrily from the accusing eyes.  
  
"I lost Heavyarms the day I lost my friends. Zechs...Relena had  
him blinded in one eye when he was captured. He can no longer  
pilot. We have a scattering of suits, mainly Leo's but despite  
being out gunned we were making a difference. We had all of Asia  
and some of Europe back when things changed a few months again.  
After that we were forced to flee with whatever we could."  
  
"What changed?"  
  
Trowa did not answer for a minute, his emerald eyes glazed with a  
mixture of hate and despair, but he swallowed it, the emotion that  
had only moments ago washed across his features in a way that Duo  
had never seen before was smothered under an emotionless mask.  
  
"Clones. They cloned four Gundam pilots and released them upon  
us."  
  
Duo jerked at the comment, his body stiffening as his quick mind  
ran over the idea. The Sank army had never had access to his body,  
for Sally and the others had taken him from the battle field mere  
minutes after the explosion. But that meant that one of the four...  
  
"Heero's alive."  
  
It was not a question. Duo's fists clenched tightly and he turned  
to the glass coffin that held the physical proof of the price he  
had been willing to pay to remove that traitor once and for all.  
  
"Duo..."  
  
"The others. Your own clone, can they be salvaged or has she  
twisted them in some way?"  
  
"I spoke to my clone at an attack two weeks ago. They are  
trapped; unable to confer with each other, denied all information.  
It is not long before they rebel and thus it will not be long until  
they are once again destroyed. They were created to push us back,  
after that they will be terminated."  
  
"And once I succeed in my mission. Once I lay waste to this  
Sank army. Will I be terminated?"  
  
"No Duo. How can you even think I would allow that?"  
  
"Three days...ten years ago I thought Heero was my best friend.  
Things change." Duo paused, taking a deep breath as he stared down  
at himself, lying as silent testimony to his failure to aid his  
allies with an ultimate sacrifice. He would not let them down  
again. "Leave me for a while Trowa."  
  
"But..."  
  
"Please. Send someone to me in an hour, to take me to where I  
am needed."  
"...Okay. Want me to send some clothes to, or do you wish to  
lighten the spirits of our troops by walking around naked?"  
  
Duo laughed and turned to face the smirking man who offered him a  
friendly leer and a quick once over scan with his eyes.  
  
"Perhaps clothes would be a good idea."  
  
"Yes, they would." Trowa graced the braided teen with a  
reassuring smile before moving towards the doorway in to the lab,  
his emerald eyes shining with his reluctance to allow his newly  
returned 'brother' from his sight.  
  
With effort he turned away and strode into the corridor and quickly  
out of sight, his footfalls silent in his heavily worn sneakers.  
Duo watched him go, the forced smile he wore fading quickly from  
his heart shaped face before he turned back to the glass coffin.  
  
His mind was in chaos.  
  
He had sacrificed everything to kill the only member of the  
betraying group that held a serious threat and had trusted that the  
remains of their allies would be capable of disabling the rest, but  
he had been wrong.  
  
And now his mistake had lead to this, had forced humanity to commit  
yet another atrocity in the name of war. He sighed, looking down  
at the passive face below. Despite the flood of emotions that had  
ran through him in those final second his face had been left  
peaceful, his lips twisting upwards in satisfaction as his last  
breath rattled in his lungs.  
  
He closed his eyes, reaching into his scattered memories,  
remembering.  
  
Throughout his life he had felt the brush of death many times in  
periods of reckless danger or after injury, but now...now he had  
stared in to the maw of the forever void. He had experienced his  
own end.  
  
Over and over again he played through those memories, watching as  
his sight slipped away, replaced by the comforting darkness, felt  
as the agony that tore at his body slowly eased as the connection  
between himself and life was quickly severed.  
  
He could almost imagine that the last thing his eyes witnessed in  
the mortal realm was the falling silver blade of a scythe swung not  
to cause injury but instead to grant mercy.  
  
But no matter how many times he relived those final heart beats, he  
could never remember seeing a white light, seeing a world beyond, a  
paradise where all those that he had ever lost would be awaiting  
his arrival.  
  
He opened his eyes again and lifted a hand tracing formless  
patterns on the clean glass that shielded his...remains, binding him  
eternally to the ravages of the mortal realm.  
  
He was a clone. But what did that really mean? Did he have a soul  
anymore?  
  
He considered it for a few minutes, evaluating his emotions, his  
thoughts. He had no way of knowing what it felt like not to have a  
soul, so how was he to tell...perhaps he hadn't had one before this  
entire mess started...maybe no one did and it was just some stupid  
idea invented ages ago to keep people in line. Perhaps the whole  
soul thing was over rated.  
  
He wondered briefly what Father Maxwell would think of all this.  
As a Catholic priest surely he'd be offended by the very idea that  
God's will was being so blatantly disregarded.  
  
As a priest he would most likely demand the destruction of such  
demonic soulless creatures immediately and along with the church  
move to institute laws to prevent any reoccurrences.  
  
But Father Maxwell had never considered himself to be just a  
priest, nor did he follow teachings of either the bible or the pope  
blindly. In his sermons and in their private discussions he had  
always illustrated that God had granted them independent thought  
for a good reason, thus it was offending Him by not making good use  
of it.  
  
He had been close to convincing Sister Helen of this when both had  
been killed...seventeen years ago. Father Maxwell would say that God  
had a plan. That He had created man in his own image so that man  
could one day reach a par with Him.  
  
Father Maxwell would tell him that he had been resurrected after  
sacrificing himself for the sins of others and had been  
resurrected, as Jesus himself had been, because his job had not yet  
been completed.  
  
And Father Maxwell would no doubt inform him that he was being  
silly and that he was needed, the method of his creation mattered  
little in the face of a good deed being done.  
  
Solo...what would Solo say?  
  
Duo chuckled softly to himself, letting his fingers skirt around  
the lip of the stasis chamber, caressing the cold metal.  
  
Solo would smack him round the head, tell him to get his head out  
of the clouds, stop with the 'holier than thou' attitude and get  
the damned job done. That was Solo all over.  
  
Questions relating to the meaning behind life, the universe and  
everything were meaningless to a street child. The only thought of  
the future they entertained was where the next meal was coming  
from. He missed those days of simplicity when enemies and allies  
remained constant. Back before blood stained his hands.  
  
And now he had a brand new set of hands and already crimson stained  
them, his own. But he could see beneath the illusion of unmarred  
skin, he could see the truth through the lies of rebirth.  
  
He was no innocent, no matter the lack of physical evidence.  
  
He could still hear the screams of his victims; feel blood dribble  
through his fingers. He may have been granted life, but it was not  
a new one, just a continuation of the last and with the traitors  
still alive his hands would be restrained physically again before  
too long.  
  
The fingers on the chamber lip clenched, gripping on the smooth  
surface and the soft planes of muscles freely exposed to the air  
tightened into whip cords of pure power.  
  
The chamber lid released a mournful crunch as lock mechanisms gave  
way to brute force and hinges groaned as they were torn open. A  
rush of cold air washed over Duo's pale body as the stasis field  
was interrupted by the barbaric invasion against the sensitive  
equipment, causing it to admit frantic beeps and no doubt setting  
off alarms elsewhere in the base.  
  
Duo ignored it all and instead released the upper hatch of the  
capsule, staring down at his fingers in surprise, before glancing  
at the torn metal.  
  
He had torn metal with his bare hands? He blinked and made a  
mental note to experiment with the new found skill at a later point  
in time before he shifted slightly and settled himself on the  
warming edge of the capsule, beside his own corpse.  
  
"I don't know what all this stuff is about, you know. All this  
crap about existence and souls and meanings. I always left the  
deep thinking to Cat and 'Fei before, so that's what I'm going to  
do now. And as soon as their free and have worked it all out I'll  
nod politely when they try to explain it and then I'll forget it.  
I'm a fighter, an engineer and the best pilot to grace the mortal  
realm, but I'm pretty lousy when it comes to anything else. But  
you already know that."  
  
He smiled warmly down at his own still features, reaching out to  
brush a chestnut lock back in to place, shivering slightly at as he  
touched the icy skin.  
  
"You and me, we're one person so I'm going to finish what you  
started. I'm going to force our peace down these guys throat till  
they choke but first I'm going to settle a score."  
  
Duo's hand dropped from the corpses face to the shard jutting from  
the crimson streaked chest. Delicate fingers of a thief and pilot  
curled securely around the heat warped gundamium and with a sharp  
tug jerked it free.  
  
The shard was perhaps eight inches long, its original colour that  
could once have indicated its source was lost beneath the explosion  
damage and the blood stain. It bore a long, curved and cruel  
looking point, thickening towards the end. A vague dagger shape,  
ironic and perfect.  
  
"I swear to you, as I swear to myself, that I shall not rest until  
this is driven through his heart, until he is returned to the ninth  
gate of hell to burn beside Judas and all the other traitors  
humanity has every produced. I swear..."  
  
"Duo! What the hell are you doing?!"  
  
Duo let out a rather unrespectable yip of surprise at the sudden  
voice and failed to control his unconscious jump, loosing his  
precarious perch on the side of the capsule in the process. He  
tumbled to the concrete ground, managing to catch himself before he  
hit and pulled himself to his feet, the shard still securely in his  
grasp.  
"Man Sal', scare the life out of me, why don't you. Just trying  
for a reason to clone me again huh?" He snapped, glaring half  
heartily at the blond, failing to keep the pleased smile from his  
face at knowing that she survived.  
  
The world would never be the same if Demon Doc ever died.  
  
"Hardly, it was enough work the first time." She paused and eyed  
him critically. "Still an exhibitionist, I see. And I tried so  
hard to leave the genes coding for your ego out." The blond rolled  
her eyes and chucked an armful of clothes at him before moving to  
the capsule to inspect the damage, discreetly ignoring the removal  
of the shard.  
  
"Ah, Sal' babe, you know you missed me." Duo teased, dropping  
the clothes and setting down the shard on the concrete floor before  
sorting through the mass of material to find a pair of underwear,  
his expression becoming disgusted when he discovered a pair of  
military issue briefs.  
  
The doctor raised a critical eyebrow in his direction as she  
returned the stasis tube to its closed position, jamming the  
damaged lock so that it would remain closed.  
  
"Indeed. Stop pouting and get dressed already Maxwell, a change  
in underwear styles will not kill you, especially as it took a five  
mega ton blast to do it the last time." She turned away to grant  
him some privacy, not that the former Sweeper was in any way  
embarrassed about his assets or their public display. "Honestly,  
one would think you'd be better suited as a stripper than a world  
saviour."  
  
"Yeah, I thought so to. But all my career tests came back  
stating I was most suited for a life time of terrorism and mass  
destruction, go figure." Duo responded, settling calmly back in to  
the familiar respite offered by Sally's ever present disapproval  
and light teasing.  
  
He struggled in to the briefs before slipping easily in to the  
provided flight suit that fit him like a second skin. He grinned  
to himself, smoothing it out before stepping up beside Sally and  
lightly nudging her to display his readiness. "I'm ready to do  
what I do best Doc."  
  
"Aggravate people?" She asked, the innocent expression on her  
face ruined by the smirk she wore. She had changed little in the  
last ten years. Her hair was short, her face lined slightly with  
worry that had been smoothed out of sight by the humour she  
suddenly felt. Other than that she remained the same as he  
remembered, a familiar presence to guide him in this changed world.  
  
"I'll try to fit some of that in too." He followed her to the  
door; the shard tucked in to the leg pocket of his body suit and  
stepped out in to the harshly lit corridor.  
  
Sally smiled at him, reaching over to ruffle his chestnut fringe in  
a burst of affection.  
  
"Its good to have you back Maxwell. I haven't had a decent  
sparing partner in years."  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Quatre Winner, former heir of the Winner family business and  
fortune sat glaring at his dinner in the mess room of Sank base,  
which served as the head quarters for the Queen of Earth and her  
'loyal' knights, the Gundam pilots. He was sitting at a bench in  
the centre of the large room alone, Trowa and Wufei positioned in  
opposite corners, well out of range of each other.  
  
No less than twenty soldiers and Heero Yuy himself stood watching,  
observing the communication between them, both verbal and non-  
verbal to insure nothing of significance was passed between them.  
  
After their meal they'd be 'politely' escorted back to the safety  
of their separate rooms and locked in for their own protection,  
allowed out only to eat and pilot.  
  
Each had also been informed that for the security of the Queen and  
her empire, their Gundam's had been equipped with remote  
detonators, to prevent them from falling in to the wrong hands.  
  
The queen had also personally allowed the three to meet four of  
Quatre's sisters who were enjoying Relena's hospitality after  
failing to make it back to the safety of L4 before the ban on space  
flight had been imposed.  
  
As a last step to ensure her knights obedience she had charitably  
given them a tour of the control centre, from which she could  
launch a destructive missile barrage against at least two of the  
five colonies and kill no less than forty million people.  
  
These 'suggestions' towards obedience had been initiated after  
Heero had caught Wufei hacking in to the bases main frame in an  
attempt to attain the true details of what had happened ten years  
ago.  
  
None of the three had believed her and Heero's claim that Duo and  
the Sweepers had betrayed the four and attempted to kill them and  
failing due to the quick actions of her honour guard. Mortally  
wounded and beyond help, the four had been placed in stasis until  
medicine had advanced to the point where they could be saved, hence  
the ten years that they had missed.  
  
Quatre had found the entire story rather amusing, as had the others  
and when Relena confronted the three of them on their apparent  
betrayal of her kindness on attempting to gain more information;  
she'd demanded an explanation for why they did not believe her.  
  
Quatre smiled suddenly at his mash potatoes as he remembered the  
look on her face when Trowa had calmly informed her that yes it was  
indeed possible that Duo had turned traitor, after all, his  
loyalties had been with the cause, not individuals. However, he  
had also stated that what was impossible was the idea that Duo had  
only mortally wounded them. If Duo had wanted them dead, they  
would be dead, plain and simple.  
  
Seconds later they'd been removed from her sight and locked away,  
unable to communicate and thus unable to work together to form some  
type of plan to escape and join up with the people that they where  
being forced to battle.  
  
Quatre's small smile died on his lips at the thought of the  
destruction he had been forced to do over the last few months and  
how Heero was watching like a hawk, preventing them from giving the  
'enemy' time to evacuate before destroying the location the Sank  
intelligence officers had targeted for destruction.  
  
It was getting harder to fight against the orders given and very  
soon a choice would be forced upon the three on whether they obeyed  
and killed thousands of the good guys or refused and caused the  
death of millions of innocents.  
  
Quatre sighed, tensing slightly as cobalt eyes focused on him,  
searching for any hint that the release of air may have served to  
communicate something to the others. Though he could not remember  
exactly what had occurred in the minutes before his 'wounding', his  
recall of events having been cut off at his re-entry in to the  
atmosphere, he knew that what they had been told was a lie.  
  
As Wufei had always said, the only reason to deny someone access to  
information was if there was something you didn't want them to  
know. Relena didn't want them to know anything, not even about the  
peace progress. But her new title told him all he needed.  
  
She had taken over, using her popularity as a weapon and now with  
her perfect soldier at her side she believed her self to be  
unbeatable. It would not be long before the rest of the pilots,  
himself included, outlived their usefulness in cleaning up the last  
of the freedom fighters and they were disposed of.  
  
He forced down another mouthful and glanced covertly around the  
mess hall. Even with twenty soldiers on guard the three of them  
could escape, if only Heero could be removed from the equation, but  
he was with them every second they were out of their rooms.  
  
Quatre rubbed at his chest absently, feeling the moods of his two  
friends, Heero's presence in his awareness long since blocked out.  
  
Wufei was seething with anger and had been for days, to the point  
where Quatre was used to the burning sensation that lingered in the  
back of his mind. He had been secretly enraged at the suggestion  
that his lover would betray any of them, especially himself, which  
was why he had taken such a risk to discover the truth.  
  
Trowa was worrying about something again, as he had been since he  
had returned a matter of weeks ago from a mission that had left him  
pale and shaken. Not for the first time Quatre wondered what his  
own lover had been subjected to that would have had such an effect  
on the normally controlled teen.  
  
However, he had been unable to be sure of anything since they'd be  
unable to...  
  
His thoughts were interrupted suddenly by sharp yet familiar  
feeling that had suddenly awakened in his mind, where the presence  
of his friends lurked. The only truth he had known since awaking  
in a hospital bed from Relena had been the fact that Duo, the  
claimed traitor, was dead, apparently killed by Heero before the  
Japanese teen had succumbed to his wounds, the scars for which  
littered his bodies.  
  
He had awoken with the distinct lack of sensation from the other  
boy whose emotions were so chaotic that it often drove the blond to  
distraction and his sudden personality switches also caused hideous  
migraine in their wake. Quatre knew of only one thing that could  
have prevented him from sensing his adopted brother and that was  
quite simply death.  
  
But now...it was back.  
  
There, besides the others, was his brother, back in place as though  
he had never left it. Random emotions barraged him from the strong  
connection as Duo's mood shifted along with his thoughts, from  
worried to happy to shocked.  
  
Quatre fought a laugh and instead allowed a hopeful smile to grace  
his face, quickly twisting from Wufei to Trowa to share the look  
around before his behaviour grew too troublesome for the guards and  
all three were ordered to stand ready to be returned to their  
rooms.  
  
The other two sent him confused looks at the unexplained sudden joy  
sparkling in Quatre's eyes and the blond wished that somehow he  
could share with them what he knew.  
  
He did not understand how but Duo was alive. The God of Death and  
Destruction had returned to his place in the mortal world and  
Quatre knew that their worries about choices and sacrifices were no  
longer significant.  
  
In a matter of days, from the emotions radiating from his re-  
established link, Relena's little empire would be thrown in to  
chaos the likes of which she could never imagine and they would  
have their chance to rejoin the good guys once again.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Duo strode calmly through the double steel doors and in to the  
central command area from which every rebel attack and now retreat  
was controlled from.  
  
The room barely lived up to its purpose. Old style computers  
littered the tables, minor tactical officers staring at what their  
screens displayed, analysing reams of data and organising  
personnel. The computers more than anything dated the base,  
showing that this small underground facility no doubt dated back to  
the days before the colonies had been completed.  
  
However, save for some ancient and out of date technology, the  
place was still sufficient to meet with the needs of its new  
owners.  
  
The control room over looked a massive open space where mechanics  
scurried around damaged vehicles and battered old Leo's, attempting  
to do their best to maintain the heavily stressed and failing  
weapons.  
  
Towards the centre of the room groups of soldiers, dressed in a  
mixture of Oz and Alliance uniforms, complete with a scattering of  
White Fang troops ran complex training patterns or were being  
taught by grizzled instructors. All of the personnel had one major  
similarity. They all bore a strip of crimson material tied to  
their left bicep as a symbol of their shared cause.  
  
"Well Mr Maxwell, what do you think of our army?"  
  
Duo's violet eyes flashed away from the scene outside the window  
and towards the balding man that had spoken, whose portly belly  
stretched the front of his stained Oz uniform taunt.  
  
The man, a former commander whose highly polished stars seemed to  
be the only thing about his uniform he cared enough about to  
maintain, was leaning against a desk and was attempting to give the  
impression that he was the most important man in the room.  
  
He failed, though not from lack of effort. Even Wufei would find  
it hard work to match Zechs' on pure pompous attitude.  
  
"It's pathetic." The braided boy answered bluntly, folding his  
arms across his chest as he watched the man's face flash beetroot  
before he managed to compose himself. Beside him Zechs' lip  
jumped, twisting the ugly scar that ran over his blind  
left eye and down to his jaw line.  
  
"I assure you its not. We have some of the best field  
soldiers..."  
  
"Field soldiers are all but useless against suits, and  
absolutely useless against Gundam's. Besides, field soldiers are  
useless at sneak attacks or anything that involves individual  
thought. You have constructed an army from former failures, lead  
by commanders that were out manoeuvred ten years ago by a fifteen  
year old boy and you wonder why you are losing. Pathetic." Duo  
snapped, violet eyes flashing angrily as though daring any of the  
watching personnel to try to correct him.  
  
The Commander stared open mouthed at him before stepping forward,  
anger flashing to his face.  
  
"How dare you..."  
  
"Commander Tash. I would remind you that Duo Maxwell, although  
he may appear to be an impetuous youth, is a highly trained killing  
machine. Threatening him is not advisable." Zechs drawled  
casually from his place at the Commander's side, a cruel grin  
growing on his features that promptly earned him a silencing glare  
from Trowa, which he ignored.  
  
Instead, the former pilot of Epyon stood and strode forward,  
offering the youngest of the Gundam pilots his hand in greeting.  
  
"Duo, good to meet you again."  
  
Duo stared down at the hand before looking up at Zechs, his eyes  
blank as he turned slightly, dismissing the offered greeting.  
  
"I was not resurrected to encage in your political squabbles  
while others are dying. Show me to my Gundam so I can do my job."  
Duo growled, glaring up into Zechs' single eye. The elder man's  
grin dropped and he met the challenging gaze easily.  
  
"No. You were resurrected to do our bidding, and you shall do  
it."  
  
"Or what?"  
  
"Or you shall die."  
  
"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."  
  
"CHILDREN!" Sally yelled, pushing between the two of them who  
had been raising their fists and shoved them apart, sending Zechs  
staggering back in to the outraged Tash while Duo took a step back  
under the force to Trowa's side, who was trying and failing to hide  
his apparent amusement. "Save the testosterone induced pissing  
contests for after Relena's funeral, currently we have more  
important things to be dealing with."  
  
Tash collected himself and managed to nod in agreement before he  
activated an over head projector, and assuming that everyone was  
listening began to outline the first of Relena's bases that was up  
for destruction.  
  
"This is location four, the former Victoria base that was  
converted into a Sank strong hold nine years ago and serves as a  
main mobile suit creation and storage area and is also being used  
to launch assaults on our Asian bases whose location was recently  
leaked. My plan shows that Mr Maxwell will lead twenty of our  
Leo's in an attack against the southern most walls, drawing the  
guards to him, giving the ground forces the distraction they  
require to enter and take over. Ground support will be  
positioned..."  
"Wow, wow, what the hell is this shit?! Ground support? Who  
needs ground support? And what are the Leo's there for? To  
provide entertainment for the enemy, so they can laugh at how  
poorly equipt we are?" Duo asked, looking shocked at the Commander  
who was frozen in mid point with his long, silver handled cane.  
  
Commander Tash spun on the teen, his face red and his jowls  
quivering at the interruption, his small eyes flittering around the  
room, glaring at the snickering comm operators.  
  
"Well, Mr Maxwell, if you do not like the plan presented, maybe  
you would like to suggest another." Tash snarled, picking up a  
white board pen and gesturing the infuriating teen toward the main  
board that was illustrated with the projection of the base lay out.  
  
Duo grinned and accepted the pen before wiping Tash's multicoloured  
directional arrows away.  
  
"Normally I leave the plan stuff to Cat and Pestilence, but I'll  
try my best." He said softly, pulling the top off the pen and  
proceeding to draw a large stick figure complete with bat wings and  
a scythe. "That's me." He informed the watchers, quickly  
scribbling his name under the figure.  
  
He then drew an arrow towards the base. "I proceed to whatever  
base that needs to be trashed. I attack and destroy the mobile  
suits that protect the base." He drew stick figures around the  
base projection with crosses for eyes, complete with mini  
tombstones. "I then lay waste to the base, and move on to the next  
one." He scribbled over the projection, drawing quick lines to  
indicate flame and smaller stick figures of dead personnel before  
continuing the line of his own figures movement off of the board.  
  
He clicked the lid back on the pen, stepped away from the board to  
face the watchers, one eyebrow raised expectantly. "So, plan done.  
No where is my Gundam?"  
  
"What? He can't...You can't...That's not a..." Commander Tash  
stuttered wildly, indicating the child like illustrations that  
marred his master piece, pale at the very concept of not using  
massive quantities of his finely trained personnel.  
  
Sally ignored the stunned aristocrat who she only endured because  
of the resources and soldiers that his presence insured they had  
access to and instead turned to Trowa.  
  
"Show it to him and give him the warning Trowa." She ordered,  
getting a calm nod in response.  
  
She turned to the braided fifteen year old and rested a hand upon  
his shoulder, squeezing gently in the only form of embrace she  
could manage in a room full of soldiers that would no doubt be  
reporting to their friends about the resurrected Gundam pilot that  
was to be their saviour. "Be careful Duo. I don't want to return  
to the duty of patching you up after you've done something stupid."  
  
Whatever retort Duo had been about to make was cut off by the  
former heavyarms pilot placing a hand over his mouth before leading  
him away and out of the stunned room, using his long braid as a  
leash. Together they headed down towards the hanger level,  
abandoning Sally to fix the ego's damaged by Shinigami's careless  
attitude and blunt expression.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Duo glanced around the crowded hanger as Trowa lead him to a room  
just off of the cavernous area. They entered using a small door  
fitted in the larger steel security door that blocked a Mech sized  
hole, protecting what ever lurked there from prying eyes.  
  
Soldiers that had formerly been demonstration flawless and indeed  
thoughtless drills, simulating covert ops missions, froze in mid  
motion to stare as the two made their way towards the high security  
area.  
  
Awe washed over the faces of many of the younger soldiers as they  
watched the journey of their idols, while older men puffed out  
their chests and boldly spoke of past deeds or even encounters that  
they had experienced with the two famed pilots during the original  
war.  
  
Duo ignored the admiration radiating from the mass of past enemies  
and walked calmly through the bulky door that was held open for him  
by a former Oz specials officer.  
  
"Thank you Davies." Trowa said softly to the man as he followed  
Duo into the dim room, sharing a look of harshly won wisdom with  
the older man as he closed the door.  
  
Davies joined the two as Trowa manoeuvred them further in to the  
room, over to where several genderless figures stood, their bodies  
hidden in the bulky white over coats of scientists.  
  
The white clad group noticed their presence in the room and hurried  
over, the leading person, a slim young man that was barely older  
than Trowa, extended a hand to Duo in greeting.  
  
"Um, Mr Maxwell. It is a true honour to meet you at last. Mr  
Barton has promised me that you may be able to finally tame the  
monster we were able to construct to serve as the rebellions main  
weapon, our mascot if you will as well as our...um...last hope. Many  
have tried, even Mr Barton, but those attempts have only ended  
in...um...failure and a few regrettable fatalities, but my team is  
quite confident that you will be capable of mastering it, after all  
you have a sixty four point five three two probability in your  
favour and..."  
  
Duo stared in shock at the older man who was still managing to  
smile broadly even though he was talking at a mile a minute, if not  
a second. The braided boy had finally found someone who had a very  
real chance of managing to out talk him.  
  
"Yes, thank you Collins. Unfortunately our time is limited so if  
you would be so kind as to reveal the suit so we can get on with  
this." Davies snapped, interrupting the tidal wave of words.  
  
Collins smile dropped momentarily in disappointment as his  
predictions were cut off, but in a split second it was back,  
gracing his thin lips and jogging his thick glasses slightly. He  
gestured to the scarily eager lesser scientists behind him and they  
scurried away again to where consoles were littered around the  
seemingly empty massive space.  
  
Duo frowned at the centre of the room, feeling the thrum of power  
through his feet, emanating from the form that he knew stood in the  
darkness even though his eyes told him differently.  
  
The hairs on his neck stirred as he stepped away from the small  
group gathered around him and took in the ever so faint glow that  
crackled over the hidden surface before the thrum of the stealth  
systems he had personally designed cut out, revealing the 'monster'  
he was to tame.  
  
Fifty feet of black gundamium towered before him, its great head  
angled down so that the red eyes could glare almost straight at its  
new braided pilot. Its huge shoulders curved, accented by massive  
dragon like metallic wings that hung from its back. A light in the  
centre of its chest glowed an eerie purple.  
  
Thrown over its back was a massive beam cannon, its white colour  
startling against the pure black and crimson of this God among  
suits. Clutched in its right hand it bore the familiar shape of  
Deathscythe's primary weapon as though it some how wished to  
continue its forefathers duty to Duo and mission towards peace.  
Its other arm was burdened by the heavy length of Epyons energy  
whip and shield.  
  
"We call it the Epy-Scythe, as it is a hybrid of the two former  
suits, made from the remains after their destruction." Colin  
offered, attempting to be helpful.  
  
Duo turned to the tall scientist, his violet eyes overflowing with  
hunger and a hint of disgust.  
  
"Epy-Scythe? You would mar such a beast with a combined name,  
as though it were just a...a by product." Duo snapped; face twisting  
at the foul taste of the name in his mouth. Collin winced  
slightly, taking a hesitant step backwards, giving Trowa a chance  
to speak.  
  
"Duo, its name is not important. This suit still bears the  
Epyon system and we have been unable to remove it, neither do we  
have the equipment to reprogram it. Everyone who has attempted to  
pilot it has failed, succumbing to the system. Even I tried Duo,  
the day after it was completed. If it had not been for Sally's  
skill I would have died from the heart attack that this suit  
caused. You must take it seriously, be prepared for the worst for  
it will attack in whatever..." Trowa explained hurriedly only to be  
interrupted.  
  
"What? I'm supposed to be afraid of a load of ones and zeros.  
Yeah, right." Duo cut in, brushing passed the older Gundam pilot  
over to where the entry zip wire hung, awaiting him.  
  
Trowa frowned, stepping after the impatient teen.  
  
"Duo, please, this is not a joking matter, pilots have died!"  
  
"Everyone dies eventually Trowa. Someone's got to test to make  
sure you can die twice. You're getting old three."  
  
"Twenty five is not old, two!" Trowa snapped, resorting back to  
their former call signs. "And goddamn it, you can't be so willing  
to die."  
  
"And you cannot be so determined to live. Or don't you remember  
that our lives are secondary to the cause. I died once in an  
attempt to save our cause from the hands of power hungry traitors,  
and if I must I shall face the pain of a thousand deaths in order  
to finally bring peace to the innocents that so deserve it." Duo  
grabbed hold of the wire and stepped into the foot brace, clicking  
the small button under his hand to engage the winch.  
  
It whinned as it lifted him up towards the gaping hole in his  
monsters chest, where the seat he had long ago known as home  
awaited his presence. "This suit shall be my Vengeance against  
those that have betrayed, those that took what we did and twisted  
it. My Vengeance shall cast a shadow upon my enemies, the shadow  
of Death itself shall follow upon my cursed heels where ever I may  
go. I shall be a plague, the likes of which the earth has not  
known since the age of Moses and destruction shall lie in my wake.  
And peace shall be as the Phoenix, its beauty born from the ruins  
of this twisted and enslaved world, rising from the ash of Sank to  
spread to all whom might embrace it, destroying those that might  
reject it in its burning fires."  
  
Duo reached the hatch platform, and tossed a light grin at Trowa,  
who stood open mouthed below, before disappearing in to the  
cockpit, the black hatch hissing closed behind him.  
  
In less than a minute the huge suit shifted and stepped away from  
its resting place, pushing the twenty ton security door open easily  
with its massive strength, the flimsy electromagnetic locks  
shattering in the face of brute strength.  
  
Beyond, soldiers were startled from their training and stood  
staring, eyes wide and panicked as their very own Gundam strode in  
to the main hanger. It stepped easily over the scattering of  
people, heading toward the hanger exit, to where the world awaited  
its cleansing.  
  
Yells of protest echoed from the speakers littered around the  
hanger, from the irate commander that was literally watching his  
only hope for victory walk away, outside of his control.  
  
Out under the sea of stars the Gundam stilled, its wings opening,  
haloed by the moonlight, as though a fallen angel stood  
contemplating the heavens. Jet packs flared and in a blinding roar  
of flames the suit was gone, leaving as predicted, only chaos in  
its wake.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
"Your fellows are getting out of hand, Heero." Relena murmured  
softly as she moved toward the impassive perfect soldier, whose  
face dropped its blank mask and allowed an arrogant smirk to grace  
his harsh features.  
  
The self appointed Queen of the world smiled fondly at the boy that  
had granted her the power she had dreamed of reclaiming ever since  
Romerfella graced her with the worlds throne. But back then it had  
been nothing more than an illusion and she had been made into  
little more than a puppet for the organisation she despised.  
  
But no longer. From her throne she dictated and controlled the  
lives of every Earthling, save for the rebels that tormented her  
continuously. And among them was her own dear brother. Obviously  
taking one of his eyes and killing his pathetic little lover Noin  
had not been enough to ensure his obedience.  
  
She had, out of respect of their dead parents, given him a chance  
to join her, to stand at her side in the place of her lost soldier.  
But he had declined and now, no thanks to that street rat Maxwell,  
she finally had her soldier back where he belonged and those rebels  
that continuously plagued her would soon be no more than a memory.  
  
"Hn. In a few weeks they shall no longer be needed and I shall  
terminate them personally." Heero growled; cobalt eyes hardening  
at the mention of his former team-mates that had over the last  
three months caused him nothing but trouble, to the point that he  
now had to watch them constantly.  
  
"You sound as though seeing them die again would be a pleasure."  
Relena smiled at the teen ten years her younger, lifting a white  
gloved hand to stroke along the ridge of his check possessively.  
  
Heero's smirked widened at the suggestive movement and he caught  
the hand, kissing it tenderly. The last ten years had been kind to  
Relena; she had matured in to a beautiful young woman who favoured  
a white Sank army dress uniform over the ball gowns she had once  
worn.  
  
Though she was a Queen, she was primarily the leader of an army  
that oversaw the entire world and that maintained a shield in the  
heavens that protected the precious Earth from the evil that lurked  
in the slowly dying colonies.  
  
"It will be. But right now I can think of something far more  
pleasant." He murmured, leaning toward the one he had sworn his  
loyalty to, kissing her pale face lovingly, pulling her down onto  
the plush sofa seat beside him, and letting her rest in his arms.  
  
"An excellent idea." Relena murmured back, pressing her lips to  
his compliantly, more than glad to finally have her white knight  
back after years of absence. After all, few could come close to  
the stamina of her perfect soldier. She smiled against the press  
of his lips at the thought and relaxed, letting him press her  
against the cushions.  
  
BANG.  
  
Heero staggered back and on to his feet, his gun in his hand, aimed  
at the Captain who stood in the door way of the Queens most private  
rooms.  
  
Relena leaped to her feet shortly after him, anger twisting her  
features at the intrusion and she glared at the terrified man. The  
Captain was out of breath but had somehow, despite his shock and  
exhaustion, remember to salute, and now stood statue like, awaiting  
his fate.  
  
"This had better be good Captain." Relena snapped, nodding  
slightly in acceptance of the salute, before quickly righting her  
uniform.  
  
"A Gundam has completely destroyed Bridger base your highness.  
Ris base is not responding and Victoria base has just sent out an  
emergency signal that they are under attack." The Captain  
reported, the terror on his face not fading despite the fact that  
his interruption seemed to have been forgiven. He was more than  
aware of the fates that had in the past befallen those that had  
brought bad news to their Queen.  
  
Relena stared at the man blankly, stunned expression of disbelief  
in her eyes as she opened her mouth to deny the statement. Heero  
however interrupted.  
  
"Where are our Gundam's?" He demanded, fists clenched at his  
sides.  
  
"Secured in the hanger Sir. The report from Victoria included  
pictures. The attacking Gundam is a new model, but..." The Captain  
broke off, realising that in his panic he was about to share  
information that was opinion only and that might not necessarily be  
required.  
  
"But?" Relena snapped suddenly, having recollected herself  
after the shock of hearing that two of her bases had been destroyed  
with another being lost as they spoke.  
  
"It had similarities to older models." The Captain continued  
meekly.  
  
"In what way?" Heero snarled, cobalt eyes blazing.  
  
"It has the wings and energy whip of the Epyon, Sir. And it  
bears with it an energy scythe, much like..."  
  
"Deathscythe." Heero snapped, anger glowing in his eyes.  
"Maxwell. He's back."  
  
Relena gasped, lips tightening in to a frown before she turned back  
towards the Captain.  
  
"Send reinforcements to the base. Send out Sandrock with them.  
And kindly remind Winner of the price of failure." She ordered,  
gesturing her dismissal to the man with a wave of her hand before  
turning to the furious teenager that bristled beside her. "Heero,  
talk to me."  
  
"They cloned him. Maxwell's alive." Heero explained, lifting a  
hand to massage the bridge of his nose in a hopeless effort to ward  
off the headache building behind his eyes at the news.  
  
"So? I bet you'll get even more pleasure from terminating him.  
I have faith in you." She offered calmly only to receive a silent,  
disapproving glare in answer.  
  
"It's not as easy as that. He is...unpredictable."  
  
"Can't you use the Zero?" Relena asked, reaching out to place a  
supportive hand on his shoulder only to have him shrug it off.  
  
"No. Not even Zero can predict him. It's as though Duo himself  
doesn't even know what he's going to do next. He fights on  
instinct alone. But I won't let him win, not again." Heero  
muttered, turning away to study his reflection in the window  
nearby, seeing the fake scarring that had to be added to his body,  
plainly visible beneath his green tank top, in an attempt to  
convince the others to believe Relena's lies.  
  
Very soon those marks would be removed and he truly would be  
perfect again and he would have nothing to remind him of his rival,  
nothing at all. Maxwell would finally be forgotten.  
  
Duo was predictable enough that Heero knew that the younger boy's  
path of destruction would at some point lead here, to Sank base and  
the baka would attempt to rescue his friends. That would be when  
he would claim a final victory and make certain that the street rat  
would never bother him again.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
It had taken Duo a while to settle in the cockpit seat of  
Vengeance, and it was not because of the differences he found there  
in terms of controls or the white helmet that he would be forced to  
wear.  
  
No, all of that was easy to adjust to, for despite his love of  
Deathscythe, he had piloted other mobile dolls and a lot of other  
vehicles as well, changes in control settings were normal to him.  
  
Nor was the pause due to a need to adjust the seat to fit his small  
lithe body for it seemed that one of the over eager scientists had  
already been kind enough to set up the entire space ready for him.  
  
Hell, Trowa had even packed the emergency supply area with a  
handful of ration bars and a few energy drinks. The former clown  
had gone so far as to load his favourite battle music in to  
Vengeance's mainframe.  
  
No, his hesitation wasn't due to any of these factors, although if  
he was ever questioned on the minute he took to move, he'd most  
likely blame them. For despite the opinions of the rebel soldiers  
and even his own insistence that he was a God, he was still a  
teenage boy that had yet to reach his sixteenth year and thus was  
still affected by the things that would affect anyone his own age.  
  
Things such as the crimson patch of stained leather dented into the  
back of the seat with a patch of plastic covering the hole that the  
shard that had killed him had made. Seeing that had stunned him,  
for it forced him to recognise the fact that this was the very seat  
that he had died in.  
  
Feeling very self conscious he had forced himself to slid in to  
position in the huge seat and strapped in, wincing when he felt the  
patching rub against his left shoulder, right on target with his  
heart.  
  
He fought to ignore it and the memories it trigger and instead set  
off on his bid for revenge which lead him eventually to Victoria  
base, for the first time ever.  
  
In the time of Oz it had been Wufei that had brought this training  
base to its knees by slaughtering all of its pilots as they slept  
before destroying the remaining Taurus', greatly upsetting Noin  
with his attack.  
  
But it was no longer either an Oz base or a training base. In  
fact, according to his scans, it seemed to be a mobile suit repair  
and construction area, where Sank's forces could have their Taurus  
and New Gen Leos fixed after encaging with the rebel forces.  
Because of its importance and the number of deactivated suits that  
it contained, it was heavily guarded.  
  
Below him Duo watched as Suits marched back and forth along fence  
lines in the dark, their massive glowing sensor units marking them  
as clear targets in the night. In sentry towers spotted around the  
compound, search lights scanned the ground, watching for any rebel  
special ops soldiers stupid enough to make an attempt to capture  
the base.  
  
Beyond, in the inner compound, hanger doors stood open, displaying  
their contents and the base personnel running around to fix the  
damaged walking weapons.  
  
None of them saw Vengeance who stood mere meters from the main  
fences, nor did any of the sentries patrolling take any notice of  
the deep thrum radiating from the cloak systems.  
  
They waved their weapons about, their eyes searched the dark,  
pilots checked their thermal scanners but none really 'looked'.  
  
But why should they. They were Sank soldiers, representing the  
Queen of the world, who could possibly attack them?  
  
Much like Oz and the Alliance before them they had grown arrogant  
and complacent, too secure in their position to believe that it  
could be taken from them.  
  
A grin twisted Duo's lips as he adjusted his hands on his controls,  
hoping that this base would prove to be more of a challenge to  
destroy than the last two. Vengeance had yet to take any damage  
but the two bases had served their purpose in allowing him to  
adjust to the flying ability of his new suit along with the energy  
whip secured to the midnight coloured Gundam's left arm. And to  
the epyon system of course.  
  
He had been disappointed by it to be perfectly honest when he went  
in to battle and his eyes were blinded by the yellow light of the  
system.  
  
It had showed him the future, it had showed him death. His  
hyperactive imagination had pictured the system giving out a huff  
of disappointment when he'd shrugged the scene off casually and  
continued his attack.  
  
Not to be out done it had continued in its attempt to break him.  
It had shown him a future where he failed, where his friends were  
once again killed, where Relena and Heero were pronounced as the  
King and Queen of the Universe.  
  
That one had earned a snort and Duo had shrugged it off again with  
a verbal suggestion for the System to try again. It had, again and  
again, showing him all manner of possible futures varying from the  
destruction of the colonies to the inhalation of all of the rebels.  
  
It had tried until it seemed to finally surrender to his unshakable  
faith in himself and had displayed a future where Heero and Relena  
were dead, Sank wiped off the face of the planet.  
  
Eypon, like the Zero system needed to be harnessed, controlled by a  
mind so certain in its abilities that it knew the future and did  
not need to be told. It rendered the system near useless and  
forced it to devote itself to predicting the immediate actions of  
the pilot's opposition in order to prove its worth and avoid its  
own destruction.  
  
In truth both systems were interested in self preservation and  
worked towards continued existence. In some cases that involved  
convincing the pilot that they had no hope in succeeding in their  
task, thus stopping them from attempting to make use of the suit in  
question or in rarer cases it aided the pilot in battle to keep  
itself 'alive'.  
  
Duo thought it all seemed rather pathetic. Anyone that needed a  
computer system to tell him what was going to happen next shouldn't  
be a pilot at all, for pilots should be capable of predicting that  
themselves.  
  
However he would need the system when it came to battling Wing zero  
in order to counter any advantage that the Zero system granted  
Heero, so he accepted the soft touch of Eypon in his mind for the  
time being, distracting himself with what was to come.  
  
Below him, groups of traitors skittered about, uncaring of the fact  
that people on the colonies were dying under their Queens  
oppression, but not for much longer.  
  
Patrolling soldiers stood and stared in shook as a section of the  
perimeter fence groaned, struggling to do its duty before quickly  
surrendering to the weight that crusted it in to a twisted mess on  
to the dusty ground.  
  
Up in the delusional safety provided by their towers, sentries  
blinked in confusion at the sudden gap in their defences that had  
been opened by some invisible force before delicate unmarred  
fingers flipped off a set of switches.  
  
A black winged form fazed in to view. Simultaneously the long  
staff blazed green as a thermal blade hummed in to existence even  
as the long scale like sections of the energy whip glowed red with  
heat, ready for use.  
  
For a good forty seconds the demonic figure stood still, letting  
its presence sink into the stunned watchers whose security had  
suddenly been violated.  
  
It was as though time had stopped on base as the guarding suit  
pilots stared at the reading on their scanners, seeing the  
abilities of the monstrosity before them and knowing with cold  
certainty that the white text on their screens guaranteed that they  
would not see the dawn.  
  
The silence was broken when one of the foot soldiers, an old  
sergeant that had served since the days of the alliance, calmly  
shifting his allegiance to the most powerful groups as power  
changed hands over the years. His hard earned experience told him  
exactly the words required for the situation and he wasted no time  
in blurting them out, at full volume.  
  
"IT'S A GUNDAM!"  
  
Time unfroze and Vengeance moved into the compound with the  
confident steps of a pilot that knew with a cool certainty that  
there was no real threat to be found within the area. Its right  
arm shifted slightly and a nearby suit that had hesitate to long  
fell to both sides, cut cleanly in two length ways before its core  
exploded, sending shrapnel into the watching base personnel.  
  
In seconds all of the guarding suits were scattered in pieces in  
the dust, bloody smears in their cockpits the only mark of pilots  
dead for their loyalty to Relena and her values. Sentry towers lay  
collapsed and burning under the touch of the pulsing whip already  
mastered and hangers had been crushed beneath seventy tons of  
Gundamium, their contents smouldering.  
  
Nothing had been spared. Even the headquarters was simply a pile  
of smoking bricks and smashed equipment, beyond any attempt at  
salvage.  
  
That was how Quatre found one of Sank's most powerful bases when he  
and a squad of sixty Taurus suits arrived on the scene. And there,  
amidst the flames was the black figure that they were looking for,  
crouched within the ruins, playing around with a half crushed truck  
that it held in its hands as though it and the people lying dead  
within, were no more than toys.  
  
Quatre stared in shock at the devastation before allowing a small  
smile to twist his lips at the sight, knowing that it would most  
defiantly piss off the self proclaimed Queen off.  
  
His comm crackled suddenly and a broad range signal echoed his own  
cockpit along with those of the other pilots assigned to the  
mission of destroying the newly revived enemy to the forced peace.  
  
"About time. Okay, who wants to die first?"  
  
The black suit stood and stepped away from the flames, raising its  
left arm to beckon to the foremost company of suits even as its  
right stashed the staff of its scythe behind one wing, pilling out  
instead the startlingly white laser rifle that had once belonged to  
Tall geese.  
  
Calmly, Quatre moved Sandrock to one side and rested back in his  
suit, a look of disinterest brushing across his face as the company  
commander keyed on his visual comm and demanded an explanation.  
  
The blond ignored the demand and instead settled down to watch the  
carnage that would act as a warm up before his own nicely staged  
battle with his 'brother'.  
  
It would be fun to finally see the commander have a bit of the  
reality of the situation the Sank army was suddenly experiencing  
forced down his throat. Very soon even Relena would have a good  
idea of what the Rebels had been experiencing for the last three  
months.  
  
Unfortunately, she'd most likely learn the error of her ways just  
minutes before her own death, but Quatre wasn't going to let that  
bother him. After all, he was quite looking forward to seeing the  
preachy girl permanently silenced.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Duo sighed as the hatch of his new Gundam opened, letting the cold  
pure air of the underground hanger wash over him, replacing the  
recycled oxygen that was heavy with his scent.  
  
It had been less than twenty four hours since he'd left this  
cavernous room and it seemed from the response to his return that  
the Commander had not yet forgiven him.  
  
He grinned to himself as he released the straps that confined him  
and lowered himself down to the concrete floor of the hanger. He  
did so enjoy tormenting egocentric officers; they always provided  
such amusement with their responses. Hell, he needed someone to  
take over from Une after all and commander Tash was good enough,  
although he lacked a certain touch of ruthlessness.  
  
He jumped the last four feet from the wire and landed neatly in  
front of a scowling special ops Captain who had obviously not been  
pleased to here their 'saviours' opinion of his men when the  
rumours reached him.  
  
Duo treated him to a full out Maxwell grin, more than slightly  
tainted by the blood lust and adrenaline that pounded through his  
veins, before he casually folded his arms behind his head, adopting  
the pose Rashid had labelled as his most arrogant.  
  
Quatre of course had simply told him upon seeing it that he looked  
exactly like one of the characters from an ancient anime show, one  
that the blond had promised they'd watch together after the wars.  
  
"Hey dude, what's up?" He asked calmly, ignoring the machine  
gun that was aimed directly at his chest by the scowling captain.  
The man's lip twisted in disgust.  
  
"You are under arrest. You will follow us or be met with lethal  
force." The captain growled, nodding to call attention to the  
small squadron arranged around the feet of the newly christened  
Vengeance, all with their weapons raised, aimed at the teen.  
  
Duo raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Oh, that's nice." He announced, smile still cheerfully in place  
before his hand shot out and smashed the machine gun digging into  
his chest out of the captains hands and in to the air. Duo caught  
it before it even began to fall and spun, his finger squeezing  
convulsively on the trigger.  
  
Yells of shock rang out as the machine guns aimed at the pilot  
where shot out of the hands of the soldiers that held them and  
clattered to the floor. The braided terrorist continued his sharp  
spin and finished the move with the stolen machine gun levelled at  
the taller mans throat.  
  
The captain stared open mouthed as his 'highly trained' squad was  
rendered weapon less in less than a second by a boy that had barely  
reached puberty.  
  
"Wh...How...That's not..." He stammered before Duo gave him another  
grin, this one lacking the innocence of the last and carrying  
nothing but pure contempt.  
  
"Like I said. Pathetic." Duo snapped, before letting the  
muzzle of his newly acquired weapon drop to a less threatening  
position and easily stepping past the stunned older man.  
  
Barely three steps away from him, Duo turned and saluted the man  
cockily with the three gun clips that he'd lifted from the mans  
belt upon passing, proving that his new hands were just as good at  
picking pockets. "Thanks for the gun baka."  
  
The Captains expression tightened and he took a menacing step  
forward, not managing to take another before the boy let out a  
delighted laugh and dashed off, heading for the War room.  
  
He very nearly body checked Trowa on his way in to the war room,  
having pushed the doors open rather violently.  
Commander Tash snapped around to face the intruder, ready to chew  
out the member of his little army that dared to be so impolite as  
to charge straight in to the restricted room without knocking.  
  
"Who the hell...You!" Tash snarled, small eyes darting to the  
machine gun that rested like a familiar friend in the braided boys  
left hand. "Captain Evon was to arrest you."  
  
"Yeah, he said something to that extent. I convinced him it was  
a rather foolish idea though." Duo answered back cheerfully,  
striding into the room and dropping down on a desk near to Trowa's  
own station where the boy turned man seemed to be analysing  
information.  
  
"I trust they will live to learn from the mistake?" Trowa  
asked, glancing up from the sheet of paper that seemed to be so  
interesting. Zechs was perched on the emerald eyed mans desk,  
helping in the analysis too but looked up in interest at the new  
arrival.  
  
"Oh, I didn't hurt any of them. But the captain was kind enough  
to give me this pretty little gun as an apology." He gestured to  
it, delicate fingers stroking the metal almost lovingly before the  
boy suddenly leaned over backwards on the desk and beamed at the  
comm officer who occupied it. "And this beautiful corporal is  
going to give me her side arm too, right?" Duo asked, voice thick  
with charm rather that threat.  
  
The woman fought a grin at the teens attitude, glancing at Trowa  
for permission. At his nod she pulled out her standard issue hand  
gun and gave it to the smug teen, who took it then kissed the hand  
that offered it.  
  
He sat up again, ignoring the fuming commander and checked the guns  
magazine before clicking off the safety and tucking the weapon in  
to the front of his vacuum suit belt. "But that's not why I'm  
here. I have another plan."  
  
"The world is doomed." Sally muttered sarcastically from near  
the fuming Commander, sitting at an abandoned desk still dressed in  
bloodied scrubs from a recent rash of injured personnel that had  
arrived after an attack on an outpost nearby.  
  
However, those that she'd treated had been permitted to escape by  
the Sank suits as they had suddenly left half way through the  
assault, called away to Victoria. For months the rebel forces had  
been being pushed back and slowly decimated and in a single day the  
Sank advancing line had been shattered.  
  
Duo stuck his tongue out at her in retort, standing up and passing  
his machine gun to the older corporal with a wink before moving to  
the world image being projected on the wall.  
  
"Okay, here it is. I'm going to attack Sank base full on, smash  
the walls, trash the suits and completely kick Wings butt. Then  
the shear number of their suits will push me back and I'll escape."  
Duo explained, unnecessarily indicating the base labelled 'Sank'  
on the projected image.  
  
"And the benefit of this will be?" Zechs asked, brow furrowed  
in confusion, wondering if the braided boys mind had been scrambled  
like his own had by the effects of the eypon system.  
  
"Relena will think that the threats over and Heero will be  
pissed, eager to hunt me down once Wings repaired." Duo answered.  
Zechs blinked.  
  
"And...Sorry, but I think we're still missing the point in this."  
  
Trowa laughed softly.  
  
"That's because you're looking at it in terms of objectives,  
rather than emotions. The base has been attack and succeeded in  
pushing back a very dangerous enemy. Everyone will relax, because  
Gundam's are like lightning, they never strike in the same place  
twice. And while everyone recovering from the shake up..."  
  
"We attack at a different level and send in ground forces while  
your suits make a second attack. I sneak in and take out Heero  
while Sexy Zechsy here takes out Relena. The end, everyone lives  
happily ever after." Duo finished, cutting Trowa off with a smirk,  
the two terrorists easily meeting on the same wavelengths while the  
trained soldiers struggled to accept an idea not drilled in to them  
during their training.  
  
"An interesting idea Mr Maxwell. However it is flawed."  
Commander Tash commented, a smug smile twisting at his thin lips as  
he strode toward the projection. "You see, in your inexperience  
you have forgotten these three bases here will detect and destroy  
any large force we send out. We'll never reach Sank, which is why  
all past attempts to directly attack the Sank headquarters have  
always failed."  
  
"Ah yes." Duo replied easily, an rebellious grin twisting at  
his own lips as he turned to face the commander. "But what you  
don't realise, because of your obvious stupidity, is that those  
three bases are currently a lot of smouldering rubble thanks to  
yours truly."  
  
"You took Victoria?" Trowa snapped, leaping to his feet in  
shock, the years of being grounded or reduced to piloting lesser  
suits having dulled his memory of just how much devastation could  
be caused by a lone Gundam. Duo turned to him, beaming brightly,  
his violet eyes flooded by an unholy glee at the mention of the  
rampage of destruction.  
  
"Yep. Oh, and Cat says hi. So, shall we get ready?"  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Quatre snarled in anger as he stepped away from the personnel  
carrier that had kindly picked him and several other survivors up  
from the ruins of Victoria base. His sea green eyes ignored the  
small group waiting for his report and instead remained fixed upon  
the heat blistered remains of his precious suit.  
  
Engineers cluttered the area around the Gundam as it was set slowly  
down on the hanger floor by the two Taurus suits that had carried  
it in. Three Leo's took their place once the main bulk of the suit  
was down, setting down the burdens they carried, namely two severed  
legs, Sandrock's left hand and both of the broken heat swords that  
served as his primary weapons.  
  
His suit had not only been disabled but entirely trashed as well,  
although the scythe and heat whip had somehow managed to miss  
anything really critical.  
  
"Sometimes I really hate you little brother." He muttered to  
himself, maintaining the mask of anger that twisted his normally  
mild features and turned to the person calling his name from  
nearby. Already soldiers had surrounded him, ready to escort him  
back to his secure and 'safe' quarters, but there were more  
soldiers than usual and most of them were surrounding an annoyed  
looking Relena.  
  
"You have failed Quatre. I am most displeased." Relena said  
softly, her voice calm as she stepped closer towards the dangerous  
teenager who scowled.  
  
"So am I. Look at what he did to my suit!" Quatre snapped,  
gesturing violently towards the twisted gundamium heaped amidst a  
group of worried engineers and awed Sank pilots.  
  
"Hmm. I hope that you have something to show for you efforts  
other than a heap of very expensive metal. Something useful  
perhaps?"  
  
"Sandrock's memory banks have a complete detailed scan of the  
new Gundam and I managed to disable its laser cannon so that Heero  
should now have a distance advantage over it." Quatre reported,  
one hand wiping his sweaty fringe from his eyes as he casually  
turned back to face the Queen of the world, mentally crossing his  
fingers in hope that those two factors would be enough to stop  
Relena having him killed.  
  
"Good. Return him to his quarters."  
  
A group of ten soldiers bustled forward, one securing the small  
blonds hands behind his back with cuffs while the others, weapons  
ready, pushed him to get him walking in the right direction.  
  
Quatre ducked his head, walking obediently while he concentrated on  
the conversation behind him between Relena and her ever present  
perfect soldier.  
  
"Without his Gundam he is useless, why keep him?"  
  
"Because, my dear, he and Duo are blood brothers. At the worst  
we can use him as a hostage."  
  
"Duo is not affected by threats. Besides, he is a strict  
Catholic; he will care little about soulless clones."  
  
"Perhaps, but tell me Heero, what would your little rival do if  
he found out we had killed another member of his family?"  
  
Whatever the answer was that the traitorous other pilot gave it was  
lost in the bang of the hanger doors behind him as he was moved in  
to a corridor.  
  
He didn't need to hear though; he knew exactly what Duo would do  
for he had no dellusions to what his adopted little brother was  
capable of. He had seen shinigami for himself during their fight  
with Oz and had no desire to see that presence glow behind normally  
laughing violet eyes ever again.  
  
It was bad enough when he felt the waves of emotion from it through  
his link. But part of him wanted nothing more than for Heero to  
come face to face with that...that demon that dwelled within his  
friend, to let the perfect soldier met the perfect killer.  
  
He fought a smirk as he was released from the cuffs and shoved into  
his cell, hiding it until the soldiers that guarded him and the  
other pilots left the room before he let it wash over his features.  
In less than two days both Relena and Heero would finally get what  
was coming to them.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Heero growled to himself as he studied the screens surrounding him  
within the safe and private confines of his precious Gundam,  
watching over the heart of the Sank Empire.  
  
Normally he never patrolled in his suit but this evening, after  
hearing the devastation caused by the return of his rival, he felt  
it was necessary. So here he was, sitting in Wing zero, positioned  
on the outermost parameter, with twenty other heavily armed suits,  
watching the terrain.  
  
With the stealth systems salvaged from the remains of Deathscythe,  
the new suit and its cursed pilot could walk right up to the base  
without the security sensors ever detecting its approach, forcing  
them to resort to far broader security.  
  
Behind him, spread randomly over half a mile was at least another  
two hundred suits, forming multiple rings of defence around the  
base, the last ring standing within the perimeter fences, armed  
with the few cumbersome space lasers remaining on the planet.  
  
Heero's cobalt eyes scanned the screens again, the ever present  
touch of the zero system in his mind beginning to give him a  
headache as he forced it to its full capacity, reaching out in an  
attempt to fore see the eventual attack.  
  
Relena had expressed her disapproval of his panicked response to  
the destruction of Victoria. She gave Duo too much credit for  
strategy, claiming an attack on Sank would be dismissed and he  
would instead go for other bases responsible, like Victoria, for  
the upkeep and creation of suits, thus crippling them. But Heero  
knew better.  
  
He would attack here, where those that had betrayed him were. And  
when he did, Heero would be waiting to destroy him.  
All he had to do was to be patient.  
  
His comm crackled softly and a systematic check-in rang in his ears  
as the control tower checked with each and every one of the pilots  
out in the darkness, making sure their defensive rings were still  
holding strong.  
  
Primary 2?  
  
Confirm.  
  
Primary 3?  
  
Confirm.  
  
It reminded him of a register, like those that had been called in  
the schools he had taken shelter in with the other pilots during  
the first war.  
  
His lip twisted in distaste at the memory of having to fit in,  
forced to hide with a group of baka children who dared to call  
themselves soldiers.  
  
Primary 4?  
  
The comm hissed softly as the Control operator paused, waiting for  
a response.  
  
Primary 4, status?  
  
Heero straightened slightly in his seat, despite the pain at having  
remained seated for too long. Any weariness that he was feeling  
disappeared as a rush of adrenaline poured in to his veins.  
  
Primary 5, check on Primary 4.  
  
Heero's eyes scanned his screens again, seeing nothing in any  
spectrum of light or heat. What the hell was going on out there?  
  
Primary 5?  
  
Panic was beginning to cloud the voice of the operator as Heero  
quickly activated his weapons systems, eyes lowered slightly as he  
charged Wings beam cannon, sweat beginning to trickle from his  
fringe.  
  
Primary 5? Status?  
  
Hello Heero.  
  
Heero's hands froze on his controls at the voice that echoed in his  
cockpit, carried on a branch frequency that cut easily into the one  
that the Control tower was making use of.  
  
Cobalt eyes flashed up with a muffled gasp and came to rest on the  
image on the formerly blank scanners. There, barely visible in the  
blackness, its armour highlighted by moon light stood a black  
Gundam, its red eyes glowing. It was barely thirty meters away.  
  
"Maxwell." Heero snarled, hate twisting his normally calm  
features. "You dare to..."  
  
Primary 4 and 5 weren't very entertaining. But you'll do  
better, won't you, traitor?  
  
"What? You think a new suit will make you my better. Baka, I  
have said it once and I will say it again. Don't delude yourself,  
you don't have what it takes to defeat me." Heero chuckled,  
raising his beam cannon with ease, aiming at the motionless black  
suit before him.  
  
I killed you once Yuy and it seems like an encore is being  
demanded by my fans. Wouldn't want to disappoint them.  
  
Heero's lip twitched as he lined up the shot easily, finger  
caressing the trigger.  
  
"Do everyone a favour Maxwell, and die!"  
  
He fired. Intense yellow light streaked from the muzzle of the  
cannon that had once saved the Earth only to then destroy it in a  
different way.  
  
Almost casually the black suit leapt to the air, its dragon wings  
spread. It flipped over the beam and landed in an almost human  
crouch a matter of meters from Wing Zero, whose proximity sensors  
screamed.  
  
Heero winced, tugging Wing zero's controls around to face the suit  
in time to see an all too familiar blade flare to life, casting an  
eerie green light upon the surroundings before the scythe arced up  
and cut six feet off of the end of Heero's beam cannon.  
  
This is a duel traitor, not a shooting gallery. Pick a  
different weapon. Duo's voice growled over the whine of damage  
alarms and Heero tightened his fists on his controls, feeing the  
plastic grips begin to give way under his strength.  
  
He had just lost his major advantage. With a thumb he stabbed the  
ejection of both of his suits beam sabres even as he dropped the  
ruined cannon. He caught a sword in each hand, igniting them to  
cast a conflicting white glow against the green and drove forward  
to attack.  
  
The black suit jumped back to gain some room, swinging out with its  
scythe, exploiting its new reach advantage.  
  
Heero blocked the strike easily, using Wings free left arm to stab  
at the larger suit. The other Gundam twisted to one side, letting  
the blade score a small hit on its hip.  
  
Heero growled as he attempted to push into the hip, only to be  
blocked by Wings own arm shield getting in the way.  
  
A haunting smug laugh echoed over the comm as Duo twisted back,  
locking Wings arm against Vengeance's side, triggering another  
jump, tossing Wing back and tearing the servo's out in its left  
arm. Warnings flashed across his screens as Heero struggled to  
regain his suits balance, staggering back several steps before  
regaining its stance and attacking again.  
  
White and green blades clashed, smoking against each other as the  
two suits struggled against each other, the systems contained  
within each cancelling each other out. Now it was the skill of the  
pilots and the power of the suits that counted, not which pilot  
could exploit knowledge of the future the best.  
  
The black Gundam staggered under a serious of blows that opened up  
the thick armour of its chest, leaving molten metal to dribble from  
the wounds like blood. Taking advantage, Heero triggered his  
Vulcan's, sending a hail of bullets toward the enemy suit.  
  
Vengeance spun, taking the rounds across its wings and back in an  
effort to protect itself from greater damage, crouching lessen its  
exposure.  
  
Heero swore, panting now from the effort required to fight an equal  
and lunged again, following up the bullets with a sweep from one of  
his swords.  
  
The black Gundam dived to the side, the white blade slicing the air  
above its head, its left arm punching out at nothing. Heero  
laughed at the pathetic attempted attack.  
  
"Losing already baka? Too bad."  
  
Duo's laugh plagued Heero's ears again and the black Gundam's arm  
snapped back. With a startled yell Heero and Wing crashed  
backwards, one leg pulled from under them by the glowing energy  
whip Duo wielded expertly.  
  
Text flew over his screens as the knee joint melted under the  
attack before the whip was snapped back and Vengeance climbed to  
its feet, scythe held ready.  
  
Heero scowled, forcing his now heavily crippled suit back to its  
feet to face his rival, wincing mentally at the sound of metal  
grinding on metal. With a knee out his manoeuvrability was down  
but with the damage done to the black Gundam's chest, all he needed  
was one good hit to win.  
  
His eyes narrowed and he triggered his own jump jets, sending Wing  
crashing bodily into Vengeance in a move that had won Duo his  
victory ten years ago. But unlike himself, all those years ago,  
Duo knew the counter.  
  
The black Gundam did not resist the attack and instead twisted with  
it in a simple move Duo had learnt years ago on the streets. Wing  
crashed to the ground again, sprawling on its face.  
  
Its screens cut out for several seconds, abandoning Heero to the  
darkness before they recovered from the shock, displaying a  
textured view of the ground in front and to one side. His right  
hand view remained blank, the texts scrawling on the screen  
declaring the loss of multiple sensors due to the impact.  
  
Heero pulled hard on his controls, struggling on to one knee to  
rise before a force sent him sprawling again, dangling in his  
harness. Master alarms shrieked for attention in the cockpit only  
to be drowned out by the scream of tearing metal. Cobalt eyes  
hurriedly scanned the displays, still struggling to get his Gundam  
standing.  
  
The damage display represented in an outline of Wing zero's body  
explained the difficulty he was having. Wings lower left leg had  
been torn completely from the damaged joint, leaving him completely  
crippled.  
  
Heero swore again, lip twisting in anger as that infuriating laugh  
continued to ring in his ears. With a determined tug he pulled his  
suit up in to a kneeling position, swords held ready to defend  
himself even as hydraulic fluid pumped from his Gundam's stump of a  
leg, staining the dusty ground.  
  
Lose something? Duo asked and something impacted on Wings  
chest, dropping to the ground. Heero spared a quick look and  
glared at the disconnected limb.  
  
"Street rat, you won't win."  
  
Don't delude yourself Yuy. You don't have what it takes to  
beat me.  
  
Heero tensed as his own words were thrown back into his face,  
keying in his jump jets in an effort to regain some movement, but  
he had lost too many jets to make the effort a smooth affair.  
  
With a flare of green light Duo attacked again, slashing down again  
and again at the crippled suit, driving it back to the ground.  
Heero parried as best he could, but he lacked leverage. Sections  
of armour in Vengeance's shoulders lifted, revealing four huge  
Vulcan cannons that spewed bullets at the downed Gundam. They  
chewed into the right shoulder of Wing, tearing into the servo's  
even as Wings left arm lashed out, its swords slicing deeply into  
the already damaged hip, this time at a better angle.  
  
The black suit failed to react, continuing its attack until the  
Vulcan's thudded empty, leaving Wings right arm half severed and  
completely useless. Vengeance stepped back, pulling itself from  
the blade that impaled its thigh, limping heavily and swung its  
scythe again.  
  
Heero attempted to raise his single blade to meet the attack but  
failed to counter it. The pulsing green blade severed Wings  
remaining functioning hand, forcing it to drop its last weapon  
before the long staff twisted, its blunt end smashing into Wings  
head.  
  
Heero slammed back in to his cushion seat as Wing was driven back  
to the ground, his display screens flashing out again and this time  
not reactivating. Duo had blinded his suit, leaving him useless,  
sprawled like some weak nothing in the dust.  
  
He waited, eyes closed, ready for the end, ready to be once again  
consumed by the pain of death.  
  
Screams pierced his forced despondency as the primary perimeter  
ring was attacked, the suits awaiting his declaration of victory in  
his duel suddenly subject to the whims of a suit far out of their  
league.  
  
Blind, lying in the darkness in his destroyed suit Heero listened  
as chaos rained around him, listening to the deaths of those under  
his command, listening to that cutting laugh, relaxing finally when  
he heard the cheers of victory as sheer numbers forced Duo and his  
new Gundam to retreat from the battle.  
  
He waited, fists clenched so tight on his controls that the plastic  
had broken, piercing his skin, as his suit was carefully lifted by  
several Taurus' and he was carried back to the Hanger.  
  
He had failed.  
  
The perfect soldier had failed and fallen to a weaker, younger boy.  
Professor J would be rolling over in his grave at the very  
thought.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
"Heero?! Heero, are you okay?!"  
  
Heero shuddered at Relena's voice, wishing that the girl turn woman  
had learnt to control her emotions better in public. With a wince  
of pain he extracted himself from his seat, reluctantly accepting  
the hand an engineer offered him, letting the older man aid him in  
exiting the cockpit, forcing himself to hide the pain as he moved  
using brushed bones.  
  
The slamming his Gundam had taken had left harness strap bruises  
all over his chest and stomach, leaving him feeling decidedly ill.  
  
He stepped in to the light of the hanger, wincing under the harsh  
over heads, cobalt eyes watering at the change as he scanned the  
area. A good forty damaged suits were crowded in to the hanger  
area for repair, with more lined up outside, awaiting their own  
turn.  
  
Nearby a group of engineers were using a laser cutter to free a  
pilot from his entrapment within the shell of his own suit, its  
hatch dented shut by an attack. Next to the engineers another  
battered looking pilot spoke calmly into a small head set,  
reassuring the trapped pilot and attempting to distract their  
attention.  
  
Heero shuddered involuntarily. Being trapped alive within a suit  
was ever pilot's worst fear and few but the best pilots ever  
recovered if it occurred to them. He had little doubt that the man  
trapped behind that hatch would be quickly transferring to a  
different area of combat.  
  
"Heero?"  
  
"I'm fine." He snapped, wiping his bloody hands on his flight  
suit before jumping down from the pitted chest of his Gundam, not  
bothering to study the damage.  
  
It would take weeks to repair and the effort of a lot of engineers  
that were now needed for other tasks. He would be forced to resort  
to using one of the others Gundam's in the event of another attack,  
but that at least would not occur today.  
  
"How bad was it?" He asked softly, letting Relena gently secure  
one of his battered hands in her own as she lead him away from the  
smell and noise of the repair bay, in the direction of her living  
quarters.  
  
"Luckily he didn't damage the buildings but he breached the  
perimeter fence and took out one of the space lasers before he was  
driven off. We lost about seventy suits and another ninety  
sustained heavy damage. He took some as well. It will take a  
considerable time for it to be repaired. I've ordered a stand  
down." Relena answered professionally, even as she wound an arm  
around Heero's hip, pulling him closer to her. "I'm glad you're  
safe."  
  
"I failed." Heero muttered, looking away only to have his chin  
caught by the taller woman and drawn back to face her.  
  
"Nonsense. You're better than him. Don't doubt that. Now  
relax for a few hours before you take the other pilots for their  
stroll." She guided him into her rooms and with a peak on the  
cheek and a wave of her hand she strolled away to over see the  
recovery of her headquarters, hiding her shaken attitude easily  
behind a friendly mask, leaving him to rest in the over sized bed.  
  
He sighed and collapsed onto it, setting his mental alarm before  
allowing his aching body to surrender to the comfort of sleep,  
reassuring himself with the knowledge that his rival would never  
have had a chance of defeating him outside of a mobile suit.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
-----  
  
Wufei gingerly picked up his fork and used it to experimentally  
poke at the grey lump on his tray. After careful analysis he had  
labelled the lump as a possible meat substance although he was not  
secure enough in his conclusions to dare to label the meat with a  
name. Possibly a 'Fluffy', although it could be a 'Rover'. He  
doubted anything that particular shade could be from a farm yard  
animal, unless there were some very strange farms out in the world  
that he hadn't yet heard of.  
  
He poked again, tensed slightly encase the lump actually reacted  
before selecting his next tool for the dissection, a flimsy plastic  
knife that was so blunt he suspected that it didn't merely fail to  
cut but actually managed to uncut. He sawed at the lump for a  
minute before surrendering to the inevitable, setting the knife  
back down and resorting to eating the rest of the army meal, trying  
hard not to look at directly what he was eating.  
  
Instead his eyes scanned the room discretely, landing on Heero that  
wasn't keeping his normally hawk like watch on them. The Japanese  
boy was looking despondent and tired, his left shoulder heavily  
bruised under the thin green strap of his vest top.  
  
Wufei had heard the sirens and the faint sounds of battle but knew  
of little else. However he was glad to see Heero looking less than  
perfect for once and from the murmurs of the guards it seemed that  
Sank's mascot had been granted a rather thorough beating.  
  
Wufei's gaze scanned over the guards before coming to a rest on  
Quatre who was staring directly at him. Their gazes locked and  
Quatre raised an eyebrow meaningfully, directing Wufei's glance  
down. The blonds left arm hung down beneath the shelter of the  
table. Wufei blinked in confusion at the arm, watching as the  
blond tapped his forearm with three of the fingers of his right  
hand.  
  
Wufei frowned, glancing back up at Quatre's face before flicking  
his gaze over the blond's shoulder, toward Trowa who was mirroring  
his look. The gesture was similar to that which would indicate  
that three soldiers were on their left, but there were considerably  
more soldiers in here than that, scattered around the room. What  
the hell was Quatre up to?  
  
He watched intently though, keeping his face as blank as possible,  
trying to give the impression of someone staring in to space rather  
than at something in particular to prevent the soldiers on guard  
from following his gaze.  
  
Quatre stood suddenly, clapping his hands together hard before  
opening them and wincing in disgust, wiping his hands quickly on  
his napkin. The startled soldiers had directed their weapons at  
the small teen at the sudden move only to relax when the blond  
offered them a sheepish grin.  
  
"Sorry, bee."  
  
A soldier grunted angrily and quickly the soft murmur of their  
gossiping about recent events started back up. Heero had barely  
even glanced up at the commotion.  
  
Wufei blinked again, swallowing another gritty portion of potato.  
A bee? There hadn't been a bee in the room that he had noticed,  
nor would Quatre swat one if there was. The blond was far more  
likely to catch it under a glass and ask that it be released safely  
out side.  
  
He caught Quatre's gaze again and followed it calmly down, almost  
smiling when the Arabian pulled up his trouser leg discretely,  
revealing a red sock.  
  
Wufei remembered this. It was that stupid game Duo had taught them  
when they'd all been stuck in a safe house, pinned by Oz patrols,  
with no form of entertainment at all, not even a pack of cards.  
Charades or something, using gestures and so forth to form words.  
Right, he could cope with this.  
  
A bee, a red sock, what next?  
  
Quatre grinned at him again, sensing the sudden wave of  
understanding through his abilities before he raised his hand to  
his face, pointing towards his right eye with a finger before  
turning the gesture into casual fringe relocation.  
  
A bee, a red sock and an eye.  
  
Wufei sighed and wished for the hundredth time since he was caught  
hacking in to Sank's main frame that he could communicate freely  
with his friends, it would be far simpler.  
  
Bee, red, eye.  
  
Be ready.  
  
He smirked to himself, eyes alert for the next gesture, glad that  
despite the time he had spent in stasis or what ever had caused him  
to miss out on ten years had not impeded his ability to think along  
Duo's and Quatre's abstract lines of thought, even if it did give  
him a head ache.  
  
Quatre shifted to one side, raising his head to look directly at  
the clock on the wall for several seconds before exchanging a stern  
glance at both Wufei and Trowa, gesturing below the table with his  
chin. The blonds pale hand formed a fist, uncurling fast to full  
extension once, showing all five fingers.  
  
A clock and five fingers.  
  
Be ready in five hours? No, more likely to be minutes. Okay, so  
something was going to happen in five minutes, but what?  
  
The blond grinned again, eyes shining as he mouthed one word  
quickly, using one hand to cup his chin, trying to hide the  
movement from view.  
  
One word.  
  
Duo.  
  
Duo was coming. Duo was alive and coming for them.  
  
Wufei's lips twisted into a cruel smirk that his lover would have  
been proud of before he forced his face back in to blankness, his  
eyes turning to the clock on the wall.  
  
He would be ready and from the satanic look burning in Trowa's  
eyes, he would not be the only one.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Captain Walker had worked as in the field of analysing attack  
patterns and developing counter attacks for most of his life in  
several different armies. Strategy had been his forte for a long  
time and he pride himself in the opinion that he was one of the  
best strategists around.  
  
But with all of his experience and knowledge, he still could not  
find a logical plan behind the trail of destruction left in the  
wake of the attacking Gundam.  
  
There had to be a reason behind the pattern of attack, a method of  
perhaps drawing all of Sank's troops towards the centre of their  
empire, weakening the outer regions and allowing the rebels a  
chance to push forward. Or perhaps the two minor bases had been  
developing something the rebels didn't like the look of and he was  
deemed not worthy to know about that aspect of the bases.  
  
He could come up with any number of possible theories and  
motivations behind the line of attacks but he wasn't happy with any  
of them. The line was too unplanned, especially as it revealed  
quite clearly that the Gundam could have come from only one area as  
it had approached Bridger base uncloaked, thus exposing the  
location of the rebel's main headquarters that had been hidden from  
their knowledge for the entire war.  
  
Was it an attempt done to lure Sank to attack in force in that  
location and entrap them? But that didn't fit in his mind either.  
Surely if that had been the intention the Gundam would have been  
more obvious. No, it was almost as though the pilot had simply not  
cared whether or not the base was exposed. Like the Sank army was  
so weak that it made no difference.  
  
Captain Walker ran his fingers through his thinning hair, leaning  
forward again to look at the display of the attack before him,  
considering the angles even as others of his support staff did the  
same while the rest analysed information collected from Sandrock's  
main frame.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
Walker looked up; eyes redden from stress, coming to rest on the  
speaker, the youngest member of his team, a newly qualified  
psychologist.  
  
"Yes Ains?"  
  
"I believe we're going about this wrong, Sir."  
  
Walker raised an eyebrow, leaning back slightly in an arrogant  
stance, his face tightening at the suggestion that he did not know  
his job.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes, Sir. We're working on the principle that the Rebel  
commanders have instructed the pilot to attack using a specific  
strategy or that the pilot themselves is a strategic genius like  
the rest of the Gundam pilots and is dictating the pattern of  
attack themselves."  
  
"Yes, so?"  
  
The young woman facing him raised a brown file, offering it  
forwards for inspection.  
  
"I have just read the pilots profile. Duo Maxwell has been  
described as clinically insane. He believes he is the God of Death  
and is heavily protective of those he cares about. He has a mental  
age of about nine, reads comics and has no strategic sense at all.  
I believe his general theory on life, Sir, is that if something  
pisses you off you just blow it to hell."  
  
"Fascinating. Does this have a point?"  
  
"Yes Sir." Ains snapped, scowling at her commanding officer in  
frustration. "Duo Maxwell would not bother with traps, with troop  
movements or anything else. He attacked in a straight line because  
those bases were in his way. He removed them and attacked his  
target, the very heart of Sank."  
  
"And failed." Walker commented smugly, folding his arms. Ains  
ignored him.  
  
"If Duo Maxwell had wanted to destroy this base entirely some  
damage to the leg and chest of his Gundam would not stop him. He  
has taken far worse in the past and kept fighting."  
  
"Perhaps there was damage or injury that our scanners could not  
detect."  
  
"And perhaps Sir, he attacked to rattle us up, weakening us for  
a ground attack."  
  
"With what troops? The rebels can't get beyond the borders  
without being detected by our scanner bases. We'd know they were  
there."  
  
"Yes Sir. Except that there is a base size whole in our scanner  
coverage at the border, where Bridge base was. He cut a path for  
others to follow in his wake Sir."  
  
"Your giving a lot of credit to a clinically insane nine year  
old trapped in a fifteen year olds body, Ains."  
  
"No Sir. I'm giving credit were its due to a boy that has laid  
to waste three armies and is about to try for his forth."  
  
Walker scowled, turning away from her with a sneer.  
  
"An interesting theory Ains, but I'll need a bit more proof  
before I impose on our Queens busy timetable. Something more  
substantial than intuition and..."  
  
"SIR! You need to see this!"  
  
Walker snapped around to where several of his team were looking  
through the information gleaned from Sandrock. All three young men  
looked more than slightly ill and were gesturing his attention  
toward their screens as he strode over.  
  
"This had better be good."  
  
One of the men activated the replay and Walker watcher through  
Sandrock's own scanners as the black Gundam troubling them so  
dispensed with the last of the more minor suits and strolled toward  
Sandrock. With the casualness of long practice, the pilot raised  
its suits hand in a wave of non-verbal greeting before deactivating  
its scythe and carefully setting its end against the dusty ground.  
The staff dragged forward as it was weilded carefully but  
confidently, drawing symbols on the ground.  
  
The pilot had known that Sandrock's systems were checked and  
monitored to insure that the pilot was not betraying Sank in  
anyway. The visuals of the battle were deemed as less important  
that scanner readings and were always analysed last, if at all,  
because everyone knew that pilots could not communicate between  
suits without technology.  
  
Only a child would consider using their suits own weapons to write  
a message on the ground, thus avoiding almost all of their  
detection methods.  
  
"What the hell do those squiggles mean?!"  
  
"It's Arabic Sir." Ains said softly from his right side. "It  
says 'be ready for ground attack at eleven hundred hours today."  
  
"But...But...We must alert Queen Rel..."  
  
A blast shook the room, cutting of the rambling of the stunned  
Captain, sprinkling the room with plaster dust.  
  
"I'm quite sure she already knows, Sir."  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Shadows darted over the crushed perimeter fence, lurking around the  
border of the harsh lights that glowed around every building in the  
huge compound built into the side of a cliff.  
  
They skittered around, avoiding the touch of the light, weapons  
raised, their black clothing marred only by a crimson band tied to  
their upper arms. Like sharks they lurked in the darkness,  
waiting, barely holding their frenzy at the scent of potential shed  
blood in check.  
  
Waiting...waiting for a job to be done.  
  
Something exploded suddenly, flames dancing in the black, shocking  
the sentries and disrupting the patrols of the hulking Sank suits.  
The glow of the spot lights and harsh over heads that illuminated  
the outer edge of all of the buildings died.  
  
Yells of panic broke out but the shadow forms did not hesitate.  
Sentries fell soundlessly to the ground, staining it with their  
life's blood. In less than a minute the light returned, the back  
up generators for the base kicking in, but by then it was too late.  
The rebels had the towers and had entered the fortress.  
  
Sirens screamed out in the void of near silence as green glowing  
eyes flared in the pitch black beyond the fences. There,  
completely surrounding the Sank base, headquarters to the queen of  
the world, was no fewer that two hundred suits, battle scarred and  
varied, from Taurus to Aries. And right in the centre of the army  
of attackers were thirty suits that matched no design ever produced  
by Oz or the Alliance. The Manguanac corp. had come to free their  
master.  
  
The Sank pilots didn't even have time to scream as laser rifles  
fired in front and rocket launchers pounded at their backs from the  
stolen towers. They didn't have a chance.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Boots rang on the steel floor of the corridors as the shadows,  
revealed as special ops soldiers dressed in full camouflage,  
stormed the tunnels of the central area of the base even as thunder  
echoed from the battle raging outside. The forty trained soldiers  
followed their four team leaders easily, even as those leaders  
followed a long haired teen that had brought victory to within  
their grasp.  
  
Duo held up his left hand, one finger raised before he gestured to  
the intersecting corridor they were passing. Sally grinned at the  
self proclaimed God's back before falling out of formation, taking  
the branch off, ten of the black clad soldiers following in her  
wake towards the control towers.  
  
Two more turns, another gesture and the huge form of Rashid was  
jogging away, his own hand picked soldiers on his heels, heading  
for the main hanger where Vengeances scans had showed where the  
capture Gundam's were stored.  
  
A cross section. Zechs to the left for the most defended area of  
the base, in search of his dear sister. Trowa to the right, his  
target being the labs that had resurrected and still contained his  
friends formed shells.  
  
And Duo was alone; his foot falls silent in his soft boots, his  
body still being hugged by the form fitting flight suit. The heavy  
weight in his leg pocket reassured him as he ducked into another  
pathway, his silenced hand gun spitting bullets at the personnel  
who stood in shock at his sudden appearance.  
  
He allowed himself a grin as he slowed, boots slipping slightly,  
wet with the blood that marked his trail through the building.  
  
The traitors would not live to see the dawn.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
The doors smashed inwards and as one the three loyal Gundam pilots  
hurled themselves to the floor off of their benches, flattening  
themselves against the scuffed tiles.  
  
Overhead bullets clattered through the air, spitting from the  
muzzle of a heavy duty M16 machine gun, ploughing into the flesh of  
the startled guards. The men fell as the constant stream of flying  
metal riddled their bodies before they had a chance to react,  
splashing blood across the colourless walls.  
  
The muzzle arced across the room, sweeping it before a hollow  
resounding click indicated that its magazine had run empty. A  
metallic clang broke the ringing silence following the shooting as  
the empty magazine was ejected and abandoned on the ground as  
another was slapped in to place. A bolt was guided back with a  
practiced hand, slotting the first round in to the guns chamber and  
then the safety was reengaged.  
  
Trowa looked up from his close inspection on the tiles, scanning  
the room cautiously. Bodies were strewn about in the centre, their  
limp forms torn by the hail of bullets, the surrounding area  
splattered with crimson droplets.  
  
His emerald eyes flicked toward the door and he felt a grin twist  
at his normally blank features at the sight that awaited him. Duo  
stood in the door way in a body hugging, black flight suit, a  
machine gun held in one hand, legs spread in one of the younger  
teens most arrogant poses.  
  
The boy was smirking but his violet eyes were fixed not on his  
friends but on the form of Heero, their betrayer, as he regained  
his feet.  
  
"Baka. You missed." The Japanese teen growled, reaching behind  
his back and drawing his hand gun from the back of his spandex  
shorts.  
  
Duo laughed softly, stepping forward, ignoring the weapon pointed  
at his chest. He slid the strap of his machine gun from his  
shoulder and threw it easily to Wufei, who was picking himself up  
from the ground to his right. The braided boy offered his lover a  
wave before pulling out a hand gun from his belt.  
  
"We don't need guns for this Yuy." Duo stated calmly, violet  
eyes meeting the cobalt glare without a hint of fear. He caressed  
the hand gun he held, switching back on the safety before tossing  
it to Trowa, who caught it easily.  
  
Heero's face twisted into a smirk and he let out a bark of  
laughter, setting his own hand gun down on the bench to his left,  
stepping forward to the small clearing by the door to face the  
youngest of the pilots.  
  
"Hand to hand Duo? Are you really that stupid or did I shake  
the last of your sanity from your head during our little duel? You  
don't have a chance."  
  
Duo just smiled at him, watching the other boy stop barely a meter  
away and begin to flex his fingers in preparation. The other  
pilots moved away slightly, Quatre pulling Wufei with them, the  
Chinese boy obviously reluctant to let his lover take on a fight  
that the small boy had no hope of winning.  
  
"Duo knows what he's doing." Trowa muttered softly, patting the  
pilot of Nataku on the shoulder in comfort, his gaze never leaving  
the two circling combatants.  
  
"Really traitor? I seem to remember you saying the same during  
our duel, and yet it is Wing, not Vengeance, that is currently  
scrap metal." Duo taunted, chuckling at the expression of pure  
hatred that rose beyond the passive mask of the perfect soldier.  
  
"I'm going to kill you and I'm going to take my time about it."  
Heero snarled, pacing around Duo, fists clenched. Duo simply  
watched him, violet eyes burning with something much darker than  
the hate that glowed in Heero's own cobalt eyes.  
  
"I did not come here to talk, traitor."  
  
"No. You came for justice, didn't you? Really Duo, isn't that  
Wufei's line?" Heero asked, smiling in contempt. Duo's smile  
twisted suddenly, becoming manic and deadly. Quatre winced,  
clutching his chest in pain as the shadow built of stagnant hate  
and pain beyond measure came forward within Duo's mind, enveloping  
the younger boy with the cloak of Shinigami.  
  
"I'm here for retribution."  
  
"You won't get it."  
  
Heero launched himself forward, seeing an easy opening and with all  
of his considerable strength he smashed his fist into Duo's  
unguarded check. He laughed at the ease of the defeat, knowing the  
younger boy would fall to the blow...any second now...  
  
Duo's head twisted back to meet his confused eyes, one hand rising  
to wipe the thin trickle of blood off of his chin.  
  
"What? That should have..."  
  
"Tut-tut, traitor. My little rebel friends made a few  
adjustments so that this would be a fair fight. You aren't  
worried, are you?"  
  
Heero lashed out again in his anger, only to have his opponent  
laugh in pure joy at the exhilaration of the fight and leap back.  
His blow hit air but it didn't stop him. He dashed forward and  
received a kick in the chest for his trouble, Duo's increased  
strength enough to send him hurtling to the floor, his ribs aching.  
  
He rolled with the attack, regaining his feet in time to block a  
downward punch intended to break his nose.  
  
He pushed Duo away hard, sending the lighter boy staggering against  
one of the dinning areas walls.  
  
Heero charged forward again, grabbing Duo's arm and slammed the  
teen into the plaster wall, denting it badly. He repeated the  
action twice before Duo leap, using the arm holding him as a prop  
and ran up the wall he was headed for, flipping over Heero's arm  
and twisting it viciously.  
  
Heero roared in pain as his arm dislocated from the joint,  
crunching heavily in the awed silence disrupted only by two sets of  
rapid breathing.  
  
Duo fell back, putting distance between them, shaking his head hard  
to regain his senses after the impacts. The plaster wall had been  
smashed away to reveal the wooden supports and a mixture of blood  
and dust stained Duo's heart shaped face.  
  
Heero swore in Japanese, clutching his arm hard, tugging. With  
another stomach turning crunch it returned to its joint.  
  
Duo didn't give him a chance to regain his composure. The braided  
teen charged, jumping into an aerial kick that sent Heero crashing  
in to the dent he had formed using Duo's body.  
  
Heero snarled, pushing away from the wall and stamping downwards at  
where Duo lay prone from the flying kick. Duo rolled, the blow  
glancing off his back and flipped to his feet only to be caught  
within the embrace of Heero's arms.  
  
The perfect soldier growled with rage as he bear hugged the slim  
teen, lifting him straight of the ground and crushing the lithe  
body against his own.  
  
Much to Heero's disgust, the boy didn't even scream as Heero's arms  
slowly began to crush his rib cage. Instead Duo kicked his legs,  
his boots contacting against one of the dining benches. He kicked  
off of it, tossing his weight back even as he slammed Heero's face  
with the back of his skull. Startled and pained, Heero released  
him, hands instinctively rising to clutch at his broken nose.  
  
Duo collapsed to the ground, gasping in air past his broken ribs, a  
demonic smile of pleasure still on his face.  
  
Heero glared at him, spitting blood onto the tiles as he  
straightened back in to position, raising his crimson stained  
fists. Duo laughed at him, ignoring the concern of the other  
pilots and his lover as he forced his own body back onto his feet,  
beckoning Heero forward smugly.  
  
Heero charged again, smashing his fists against Duo's blocking  
arms, driving the violet eyed pilot backwards with his furious  
blows.  
  
Duo reeled, lashing out with a boot and catching the side on his  
opponent's knee, causing the perfect soldier to buckled forwards.  
Shinigami laughed, rising up higher in Duo's mind, violet eyes  
burning with a dark fury beyond hatred and brought both of his  
clenched fists down on Heero's exposed back.  
  
The cobalt eyed traitor was driven to the tiles, his head hitting  
them hard and lay stunned for a second. Duo raised his foot, ready  
to deliver yet another blow, not concerned by ethics against  
hitting a downed opponent. The streets did not teach ethics, they  
taught survival.  
  
Heero's hand lashed out and caught Duo's other balancing foot and  
tugged, sending the other sprawling backwards against the ground.  
Duo laughed in response, the adrenaline pounding through his body  
and the mind set of Shinigami masking the pain of his injuries,  
creating more anger instead and thus more strength.  
  
The perfect soldier rolled before Duo could regain his feet,  
landing atop the younger teen and forcing him back down. He  
punched down at his pinned opponent, grappling furiously when the  
blow was caught, his other hand closing on Duo's throat.  
  
"Die." Heero's snarled, tightening his fingers and cutting off  
the braided boy's supply of life giving oxygen.  
  
Duo struggled, both of his hands caught in Heero's right, rocking  
his body in an attempt to free him self. Violet eyes burned into  
cobalt as the fingers tightened still more. Duo arched, raising  
his knee as hard as he could and struck exactly where he had aimed  
on the teen that knelt over him, a knee on either side.  
  
Heero yelled in agony, rolling to one side as Duo's knee struck his  
groin and lost his grip.  
  
Duo gasped in air, rolling away from the traitor, using a bench to  
pull himself back to his feet, his pale neck marred with finger  
prints. He wheezed, laughing bitterly as he limped toward Heero,  
who had regained his feet despite the inflicted pain.  
  
Bleeding, bones broken and flesh torn the two faced each other  
again, this time taking a far more primitive stance, circling.  
  
As one they lunged forward, grappling, hands locking as they  
attempted to push each other back, driven to a wall were they would  
be unable to escape. They struggled back and forth, growling  
wordlessly in a language long ago forgotten by man kind before  
Heero twisted, pulling Duo towards him on onto his raised knee.  
  
Duo staggered back, gasping in the air he had lost before lunging  
at Heero, knocking the taller boy on to his back. Duo's finger  
nails clawed at Heero face in an effort to blind as the two rolled,  
fighting for dominance.  
  
Heero punched in the close confines between both of their bodies,  
pummelling Duo's shoulders and upper chest before the two jerked  
apart.  
  
Heero pulled away, struggling to his feet and clutching his neck in  
pain as blood trickled between his fingers. Duo smirked at him,  
blood staining his teeth from the bite he had delivered before  
diving again from the traitor that had killed his family.  
  
Thought surrendered to the power of plain instinct as they pounded  
against each other to the shock of the other pilots and Rashid's  
group who had arrived to back up the braided pilot.  
  
Blood pouring from wounds they slammed kicks and fists against each  
others defences, Heero's greater bulk and reach an advantage over  
the failing smaller boy whose body was not suited for such  
fighting.  
  
Quatre's look however stopped any action the newly arrived men  
might have taken, forcing them to watch as the two teenage boys  
slowly beat each other to death.  
  
Heero lashed out again, his punch landing against Duo's chest,  
driving him back another step. His boots lost their grip on the  
suddenly wet tiles and Duo fell backwards on to a pile of something  
warm, leaving him lying in a pool of cooling blood.  
  
He trust his arm out to catch himself only to be rewarded with a  
burst of pain up his forearm at the bones battered from blocking  
Heero's attacks finally gave way with an audible crack.  
  
The perfect soldier sneered down at him, panting and clutching his  
injured shoulder.  
  
"Now, Maxwell. Die."  
  
He leaned forward, raising his hand to deliver a killing blow. Duo  
laughed.  
  
"You...haven't...won." The braided pilot of Vengeance whispered,  
smiling up at the traitor who smirked down at him.  
  
"Really?"  
  
Something flashed in the harsh over heads of the dining room,  
before it was plunged deeply in to exposed flesh.  
  
Heero starred downwards in shock at the shard of heat twisted  
metal, his mask dropping as the pain and surprise washed over his  
face.  
  
"But...But..." He mumbled, hand rising to grasp the shard of  
gundamium that jutted from his chest, piercing right through to his  
traitorous heart.  
  
His lost his balance and rolled backwards from his crouch, landing  
on his back on the cold and blood stained tiles. He mouthed  
wordlessly as Duo followed him painful, leaning over the teen that  
he had once called a friend, staring in to the glazing eyes as  
Heero struggled against the darkness enclosing around him.  
  
"Bad guys...never...win."  
  
The light faded from those staring eyes and Duo brushed them closed  
with the palm of his hand.  
  
Someone crouched beside him, sliding a strong arm under his own,  
helping to gently pull him to his feet and balancing him once he  
regained them.  
  
"You are a mess, brother." Quatre murmured softly, moving to  
support his other side, helping Wufei with their avenger.  
  
Duo smiled, gaze locking on the concerned hazel eyes that scanned  
his battered body, not looking at all pleased.  
  
"Hey 'Fei. Missed you."  
  
The Chinese boy raised an eyebrow, lip twisting to show his  
amusement.  
  
"Hmmm. We'd better get you to Sally." He paused, looking  
thoughtful. "Sally is still alive, right?"  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Relena glanced up from the display screens that were clearly  
showing her mighty army being devastated by the shear number and  
experience of the enemy suits that surrounded her base when she  
heard a polite cough.  
  
"What..." She snapped, trailing off when her eyes fell on the man  
before her. It was not some nameless soldier with a message as she  
had expected. Instead, before her, dressed in black combats with a  
crimson band around his arm, was her older brother.  
  
Yells of panic rang in the corridors behind him, beyond the  
entrance to her private rooms, followed by bursts of muffled gun  
fire. The suit attack had been nothing more than a distraction.  
  
"Hello Relena." Zechs offered softly, gun hanging casually by  
his side, unthreatening. His blond hair had been cut short and  
without his fringe, the long angry scar that marred half of his  
face was on clear display, as though he were somehow proud of the  
ugly mark.  
  
Relena smiled slightly, admiring her own personal handy work.  
  
"Hello dear brother. How have you been coping since the tragic  
death of Noin? I had heard you too were close." Relena drawled,  
frowning when her words failed to cause the anger that she had  
expected.  
  
"Really Relena, is that the best you can do? I'm disappointed."  
Zechs stepped forward, his single eye watching his sister  
passively as the girl turned woman attempted to mask her movement  
toward the gun at her waist. "You have lost Relena."  
  
"I don't think so brother. Any second Heero while arrive and  
perhaps I will be kind enough to grant you a painless death. You  
will be able to rejoin your lost love. How very romantic."  
Relena's hand slid over the grip of her hand gun, a finger settling  
in the grove of the trigger. With a practiced sweep of her thumb  
she deactivated the safety.  
  
"No, sister. Duo has most likely already killed your perfect  
little soldier. You base has fallen and your empire will follow  
it."  
  
"No brother. It is the rebels that will fall. Starting with  
you!"  
  
The gun was pulled free of the holster, muzzle coming up to level  
on the broad chest of the man that she had once mocked for having  
blood on his hands, only to later do far worse herself.  
  
Two shots rang out and blood flowed on both white and black cloth.  
  
A body fell limply to the ground, a gun clattering to the carpeted  
floor from lifeless fingers.  
  
Zechs turned away, slotting his own weapon back into its place in  
its shoulder holster and walked away, leaving the Queen of the  
world where she lay. He barely noticed the small bullet nick on  
his upper arm.  
  
Outside the battle ended as the remaining suits surrendered to the  
evitable. The world was changing again and this time the lightning  
count would do everything in his power to insure it was for the  
better.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
---------  
  
Duo sighed softly as he looked out across the lake, wincing  
slightly at the twinge of pain from his battered ribs. He was  
still healing but he was glad to have been freed at last from the  
rebel headquarters infirmary.  
  
In truth he had stayed there less than a day before going against  
Sally's orders and joining in the battles for the remaining Sank  
controlled bases. The enemy had fought hard, even after receiving  
proof of their leaders down fall, but little could stand up to  
attacks from three Gundam's at once.  
  
Nor could their leader's attempts to out smart or entrap the rebel  
suits succeed after Commander Tash had been informed politely by a  
blond teenager that he was an idiot who could not find his arse  
with both hands and a map.  
  
Duo smiled at the memory. Quatre had been corrupted over to the  
dark side rather easily during the Oz wars and had reached the  
point where he was beginning to advance beyond his teacher. Duo  
was so proud.  
  
With Quatre in charge of the rebels, the remains of Sank had no  
hope of victory. The bases that remained had surrendered only days  
before, the soldiers happily handing in their weapons, some glad  
that the ten year dictatorship had finally been brought to an end.  
  
The defence grid built to protect the Earth from the threat the  
colonies posed had fallen only a few hours after Relena's death had  
been announced, succumbing to the might of the Sweepers, who were  
more than happy to hear from Duo once again, even if it was for a  
favour.  
  
Now as his violet eyes scanned the horizon where the sun was  
sliding into hiding beyond a range of mountains, he could see the  
trails of supplies shuttles taking off, heading for the starving  
colonies with all the provisions that they could carry.  
  
Lots of people had died according to Catherine, who had to Trowa's  
surprise, joined up with the Sweepers after Howard's death and  
risen rather quickly through the ranks. She and Nick, the Captain  
of G's former ship, had landed on Earth a week before to act as  
representatives for the interests of space.  
  
Thousands had died on the colonies during Relena's rein and both  
the rebels and the Winner Corporation were already in action to  
reverse the damage. Iria had down well in leading the now united  
Colonies during the disaster.  
  
Somewhere, back at the base, discussions were being held to form a  
new government, built up of representatives of the groups involved  
and plans detailed for the destruction of weapons.  
  
Duo held out little hope though. He had heard such talk before and  
it always seemed to fail. In another ten years the new government  
would become corrupt as well and war would ravage everything again.  
Peace was a thing that would only be achieved when mankind  
destroyed itself.  
  
He turned slightly, looking down from his seat on a low branch of  
an impressively sized oak on the grounds of one of Quatre's larger  
houses. Wood had been piled neatly into funeral pyres around the  
grass banks of the lake, sitting silhouetted in the light.  
  
There were five in total, although two were positioned to one side,  
protected by several heavily armed guards who were to insure no  
intruder gained samples from the bodies waiting to be burned. The  
other three were surrounded by a scattering of people whom Duo  
vaguely recognised, although the last ten years had changed them.  
  
Quatre had been shocked to say the least when he had been  
introduced to the older version of Trowa, who had promptly hugged  
him longingly before returning the Zechs' side. The two had shared  
loss together and had recovered by finding love in each other.  
  
The younger version of Trowa had promptly adopted Trinton as his  
name, in order to prevent confusion. The three rescued pilots had  
taken the news that they were actually now clones differently.  
Trowa...Trinton had shrugged, but then it was no news to him, as he  
had already met his own clone during battle.  
  
Quatre had refused to believe at first until he was shown his own  
body. After that he had devoted himself to the war and spoke no  
more on the subject until Rashid had confronted him. The huge  
Arabian soldier had quickly set his master to rights again and the  
blond had accepted the situation.  
  
Wufei had withdrawn to battle as well and for several days had  
spoken to no one, spending his free time in meditation on the  
issue. Only a few days ago the Chinese boy had reappeared from his  
self imposed isolation and announced that he had come to a  
conclusion on his lovers question relating to souls and existence  
in general.  
  
Chang Wufei had proudly announced before his eager audience that he  
had been forced to reach in to areas of thought that he had before  
left untouched in order to find the answer. And that answer was  
'Shit happens', as dictated by one of Duo's old and long lost T-  
shirts. The others had agreed.  
  
That event had led them to today; to something that they all felt  
had to be done, in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the past.  
  
Duo was sitting in his tree waiting for his own funeral to start.  
  
It was...creepy.  
  
His branch wobbled slightly as someone settled beside him, wrapping  
a strong but wiry arm over his shoulders. Without hesitation the  
god of death snuggled up to his dragon, accepting the offered  
warmth.  
  
"You know, if I wasn't such a composed individual, this might be  
freaking me out." Wufei muttered, dropping a chaste kiss onto  
Duo's forehead, deftly avoiding a healing cut. Duo smiled.  
  
"Hmm, not every day you see yourself burnt. I've seen freakier  
stuff though. You should be glad that you guys don't remember  
dying." Duo shuddered, wincing slightly as his ribs resisted the  
sudden movement. He fingered the cast entrapping his wrist,  
tracing the signatures and messages that littered it.  
  
"Still dreaming about it?" Wufei asked, concern in his voice as  
his hazel eyes scanned the pyre area, noticing a summoning wave.  
  
He gestured to Duo and helped the injured boy to stand from the  
ground level branch before slipping his hand over Duo's, guiding  
him towards where the others waited.  
  
"Sometimes." Duo muttered, moving past the watching Manguanacs  
over to where Quatre and Trinton waited by a small fire. "It  
matters little."  
  
"Sure?" Wufei asked softly.  
  
"Yes. This is a new beginning. Things will get better."  
  
Wufei shared a smile with the watching two pilots at the conviction  
in Duo's voice, stepping forward to take his pace at the fire even  
as Trowa and Zechs joined them; the scattered observers leaving the  
group of six plenty of room.  
  
"And what if they don't?" Zechs asked, amusement colouring his  
tone. Duo turned to him, eyebrow raised in mild contempt, as  
though the question was stupid.  
  
"Then I march out in Vengeance and kick butt until everything  
that isn't better is rubble."  
  
"Ah, excellent attitude for a period of peace." Trowa drawled  
sarcastically before stooping to pick up a burning branch from the  
fire. "Shall we get this over with?"  
  
"Wait." Duo requested calmly, drawing a short but lethal  
looking knife from a sheath on his forearm, its blade flashing in  
the dusk and the fire light, turning the silver yellow. "To new  
beginnings." He lifted the knife to the back of his neck and with  
a sharp jerk served his braid at its base.  
  
He caught the braid easily before it fell to the dirt, his freed  
hair falling around his chin level. He smiled at his shocked  
audience before selecting his own branch and moving away from the  
group towards the pyre that held his former body.  
  
Trowa and Zechs exchanged worried glanced before moving away to  
burn the guarded forms of Relena and Heero.  
  
Quatre laughed at his adopted brother's antics, shaking his head as  
he casual took a branch and strolled away to shove the flame into  
the leaves packed under his own bullet marked form. There was  
little ceremony to the act although the blond did stroke a hair  
from the pale face before stepping back to watch the blaze.  
  
Wufei smirked at Duo's action, accepting the decision easily  
although he would miss his lovers long hair until it grew again,  
collecting new memories of a new life. The past would burn today  
along with his braid. Wufei walked away to his own from, bowing  
deeply in respect before he lit the pyre and moved away, the dry  
wood catching quickly.  
  
Nearby Duo draped the cloned braid, created by science rather that  
through growth, over his clone's chest, where the shard had pierced  
its heart. He took the limp forms hand gently in his own,  
shuddering slightly at the icy touch.  
  
"The scores settled and the peace is beginning. Rest easy, my  
other, your duty is done, mine is just beginning." He clutched the  
hand before laying it down, whispering the words of the last rite  
almost silently before stepping back and touching his burning  
branch the pyre.  
The wood flickered and burnt, flames licking up around the still  
form, sweeping quickly over it, until the body and the past  
disappeared from sight.  
  
Owari. 


End file.
